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DAY UNTO DAY 



DAY UNTO DAY 



By LOUIS HOWLAND 



l Day unto day utter eth speech"'' — Psalms 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 191.1 
The Robbs-Merrill Company 



^f 



»■ 



V 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH <fc CO- 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



iGLA295204 



To the Three Other Members of that 

Casual Club Which Has so Often and so Happily 

Dined and Discoursed of High Things 

This Book is Affectionately 

Dedicated 



CONTENTS 



The Advent Message . 






i 


A Christmas Talk . 






12 


Pleasure from Contrast 






23 


Lent ...-....•. 






34 


Divine Reticence 






45 


Judaism and Christianity 






57 


An Easter Thought . 






69 


The Birthday of the Church 






79 


Doctor Eliot's Religion 






90 


The Lust for Fame . 






101 


Conscience and Intelligence . 






113 


The Problem of Prayer 






124 


A New Creator 






136 


Meredith's Idea of God 






148 


The Gospel of Shirking 






159 


The Candor of the New Testament 






170 


The Test of Truth 






181 


Interpreters of the Faith 






192 


Rewards of Religion . 






202 


The Question of Heresy 






212 


Hypocrisy . 






. 223 


Effect of Power . 






. 234 


Industry and Humility 






. 244 


Violence of Speech 






. 255 


Moderation 






. 265 


The Future Life a 






. 276 



These papers were printed from week to 
week in the Indianapolis News under the title 
Case and Comment. For permission to use 
them in the present form the author is under 
obligation to the News, an obligation which he 
very cheerfully acknowledges. If long prefaces 
were permitted much might fittingly be said by 
way of deprecation or apology. But it is enough 
to express the hope that old friends will be 
glad to renew their acquaintance with the au- 
thor, an acquaintance which he values highly, 
and that through the mediatorship of this book 
other friendships may be formed. 

Indianapolis, March, 191 1. 



DAY UNTO DAY 



DAY UNTO DAY 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

THE thought of the Advent season, a 
thought which is fundamental to Chris- 
tianity, is one of preparation. The closer one 
gets to the simple realities of religion the more 
is one impressed by the necessity of fitting one- 
self for what is to come. There are thus a real 
Christian prudence and foresight which, so far 
from being worldly in character, are of the es- 
sence of the faith. Life itself is a preparation 
for something to come, precisely as a man's 
school days are a preparation designed to 
fit him for the performance of the duties 
that devolve on him when he reaches the 
years of maturity. Properly considered, there 
is no conflict here between the worldly and 
the religious life. The business man who sim- 
ply lives from day to day, who never works 
and plans for the future, and who fails to train 

en 



DAY UNTO DAY 

and develop himself so that he may be fit to 
deal with all emergencies as they arise, can not 
expect to succeed. It is his hope to be better 
qualified each day for the work that he is called 
on to do. The same thing is true in religion. 
The only difference is in the things for which 
the preparation is made. In both cases there 
must be faith in things which in a sense do not 
exist, and hope of advantage to be realized in 
the future. No matter to what task a man 
gives himself, there must be this looking for- 
ward, this constant and persistent effort to im- 
prove oneself along the lines of one's activity. 
Christ commended this prudence when He said, 
"The children of this world are in their genera- 
tion wiser than the children of light." And in 
very truth if men would show in their religious 
life the same energy, devotion, zeal and wise 
foresight that they show in their worldly af- 
fairs, the kingdom of God would soon be 
supreme throughout the earth. If there were 
the same shrewd adaptation of means to end 
in the church as in the world, the undisputed 
reign of righteousness would soon be a reality, 
instead of, as now, a beautiful dream. What 
is the difference? Why is it that men are # so 

[2] 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

relentless in pursuit of worldly advantage and 
so careless in their religious life? 

The answer to the question makes clear the 
need for such a season as Advent. It is that 
material things seem real to us, while spiritual 
things — which are the only real ones — seem 
very shadowy and far away. If we prized the 
latter as we do the former, we should strive at 
least as hard to realize them. So we have this 
effort to give us a true sense of relative values, 
and to impress on us the fact that character is 
the one thing worth struggling for, the one 
thing on which all else depends. After all, 
what are the realities of life ? They all have to 
do with conduct, all bear directly on the most 
practical life that the most practical man can 
live. There is no Christian virtue that will not 
help a man to win even worldly success, if the 
success is worthy at all. Isaiah throws a flood 
of light on this subject. He tells us that the 
realities, even in religion, are not sacrifices or 
burnt offerings, not vain oblations or incense, 
not new moons or Sabbaths or feasts. All these 
may be worse than nothing, may be altogether 
vanity. Here is the sum of the whole matter : 

"Wash ye, make you clean; put away the 

[3] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

evil of your doings from before mine eyes; 
cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judg- 
ment, relieve the oppressed, judge the father- 
less, plead for the widow." 

That is life, and the only true life — and it is 
only with life that religion has to do. The 
problem now, as always, is to make life what it 
ought to be. And there is no church or institu- 
tion that has any value except as it contributes 
to that end. This is the reality which religion, 
if it is true, must always hold up before the 
world. When it fails to do that it ceases to be 
true, ceases to be real. And a religion that is 
unreal is worse than no religion at all. Advent, 
therefore, is specially designed to impress on 
men the danger of dealing in an unreal way 
with so real and vital a thing as religion. 

But a religion may be real, and yet be unreal 
to many of those who profess it. We grow 
familiar with the great truths which we have 
been taught to believe, so familiar indeed, that 
they make no appeal to us. Religion tends to 
become conventional and mechanical, to de- 
velop into a mere system. Indeed, this seems 
to be an almost natural tendency. The sense of 
reverence is easily dulled. We continue to use 

[4] 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

a great language long after it has ceased to 
have any meaning to us. Many Christian 
phrases have suffered this fate. Whatever else 
Christ may have had in mind, He certainly did 
try to bring home to His people the spiritual 
significance of their religion. We read in the 
gospel : 

"Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast 
out all them that sold and bought in the temple, 
and overthrew the tables of the money- 
changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, 
and said unto them, It is written, My house 
shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have 
made it a den of thieves." 

Here is a recurrence to the thought of the 
older and nobler days of the nation's history, 
a dramatic preaching of the old gospel of rev- 
erence for holy and sacred places as peculiarly 
the habitation of Jehovah. It is some such 
duty as this that religious reformers have al- 
ways tried to perform — to make deeply and 
vitally true the truths which men have ceased 
to hold as parts of their spiritual life. So the 
great summons is to the church and its mem- 
bers, to all those who profess to believe at all 
in the life of the spirit. Unless that life is in 

[5] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

the soul of a man it can do him nothing but 
harm to pretend to have any faith in it. Hon- 
esty and sincerity in religion there must be if 
religion is to be in any sense spiritual. 

But religion, to be of value, must not only 
be real in itself, but it must be vitally rela- 
ted to life. We are much given to thinking 
of the spiritual life as something separate and 
distinct from the life that we live in the world 
— as belonging to another sphere and governed 
by different laws. There could hardly be a 
greater mistake, or one more disastrous in its 
consequences. For the main function of re- 
ligion is to influence the daily conduct of men, 
to make them better and nobler in all that they 
think and do. We are, as Isaiah said, to sub- 
ject ourselves to spiritual influences in order 
that we may as individuals cease to do evil and 
learn to do well. The fruits of the Spirit, of 
which the apostle writes, are virtues that are 
to be manifested in business and society — in 
all the relations that we have with our fellow- 
men. To take any other view is to make re- 
ligion a mere matter of church-going and of 
Sunday observance, and to eliminate from life 
the religious element. It is, therefore, neces- 
[6] 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

sary that men should be constantly reminded of 
the closeness of the relationship between re- 
ligion and life. "Owe no man anything," 
writes St. Paul, "but to love one another." A 
very practical duty, surely. The apostle then 
proceeds to show that the whole moral law is 
involved in this loving of one's brethren. After 
summarizing the commandments, he says : "If 
there be any other commandment, it is briefly 
comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Love," 
we are told, "worketh no ill to his neighbor: 
therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." It 
all goes back to the spiritual motive, that mo- 
tive which is the only sure prompter to right- 
eous action. This, of course, is a very old 
doctrine. There is nothing new or sensational 
about it. We need no modern prophet, with 
mutterings about "mortal mind" and "ma- 
licious animal magnetism," to reveal it to us. 
It is simply the gospel of Jesus Christ as 
preached by Him and the devoted men who in- 
terpreted His message. 

But that is just the trouble. We have heard 
the old message so often, it is so much a part 
of our intellectual inheritance, that it has lost 

m 



DAY UNTO DAY 

its freshness. St. John understood this when 
he said that the commandment which he de- 
livered, namely, that men love one another, was 
not a new commandment, but one that they had 
had from the beginning. His aim was to put 
life into it, to clothe it once more with the 
freshness that it had lost. So it is that in this 
season of preparation and expectation we are 
bidden to think, not of new things, but of very 
old things, are to try to draw from them that 
power and inspiration of which they are indeed 
the source. And why? Simply that we may 
live the right sort of lives. The idea is brought 
out very clearly in the Epistle to the Romans : 

"The night is far spent, the day is at hand : 
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 
and let us put on the armor of light. Let us 
walk honestly, as in the day ; not in rioting and 
drunkenness, not in chambering and wanton- 
ness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision 
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." 

So it is that men are called, not to two lives, 

but to one life — the life of the spirit, which, 

if it is not lived in this world, will not be lived 

anywhere. We often forget this, often seem 

[8] 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

to think that men can not, as we say, be "spir- 
itual" while they tabernacle in the flesh. Out 
of this schism in thought grows very naturally 
a schism in life. And as a result we lose all 
sense of the reality of the connection between 
religion and life, between faith and conduct. 
Religious teachers have done much to encour- 
age this error, as when they talk as though the 
spiritual life were a thing of the future, to be 
lived only in that blissful state which we call 
heaven. But man is a spirit now — the spiritual 
life is to be lived now. The question is simply 
one of being faithful to the Christian ideals 
to which we profess our devotion, and which 
are to lead us on to the conquest of all that is 
wicked in our own natures. Those who have 
forgotten this will be surprised to note how 
the thought is emphasized by all the New Tes- 
tament writers. 

So we are reminded that spirituality is really 
a very practical thing, and not at all that mys- 
tical, world-disregarding thing which it is 
sometimes supposed to be. We are to "cast off 
the works of darkness," and "put on the armor 
of light" at once, and not after death. We are 
to "walk honestly as in the day" all the while, 

[9] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

and not merely on Sunday. Even these com- 
mandments we have "had from the beginning." 
But so weak is human nature that we need con- 
stantly to be reminded of them. We need not 
only to be reminded of them, but also to realize 
them as very practical admonitions. And so 
men are bidden, not only to prepare themselves 
for a reverent celebration of the great festival 
of the Incarnation, but to get themselves into 
such a teachable frame of mind that they may 
profit by the lessons which it inculcates. We 
know that the perfect life was the product of 
the spiritual influences to which it was always 
kept in subjection, and that it was lived among 
difficulties and distractions such as we have 
never known, and never can know. We see the 
beauty of it, and marvel at its power. We 
ought to try to see that it was what it was be- 
cause it was always true to the highest and 
noblest ideals, that it was one life of a piece 
throughout, and that its perfection was man- 
ifested in this world and in the performance of 
the humblest duties. It is all very real — so real 
that men have never been able to get away 
from it. There is a discipline to be had from 
the struggle against the world influence which 
[io] 



THE ADVENT MESSAGE 

is invaluable. It is worth much to realize that 
"the night is far spent, the day is at hand," the 
day of victory over all the trials, tribulations 
and temptations to which human nature is sub- 
ject. The Advent message comes to all. It 
will be well to heed it, as thoughtful men 
should. 



[«] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

/^\N Christmas day it is difficult for a man 
^-^ who has any of the spirit of the gra- 
cious season in him to think of anything else 
than Christmas. And if he thinks to any purpose, 
he must see that the festival is based on some- 
thing more than a mere beautiful sentiment. 
The world has kept it in reverent remembrance 
for centuries, not because men have always 
been kind-hearted, gentle, loving and generous, 
but rather because they were deeply convinced 
that something of transcendent importance 
happened in Bethlehem two thousand years 
ago. So far is Christmas from being the prod- 
uct of the good qualities of human nature, that 
the fact is that those qualities are themselves 
very largely the result of the great event which 
is commemorated on Christmas day. Men did 
not create the feast because they had its spirit 
in them — it was the feast that created the spirit 
in which it is kept. If that is so, it is well for 

[12] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

us all to try to realize as far as we can the 
significance of the coming into the world of 
the Founder of our religion. For the day is 
fundamentally a religious day — a holy day. 
To strip it of that significance is to rob it of 
all its power and beauty — to put it, indeed, in 
process of extinction. As a day of mere sec- 
ular rejoicing it can not survive, for such re- 
joicing is certain, sooner or later, to become 
selfish, and when selfishness reigns, Christmas 
will be gone. Our Fourth of July has largely 
ceased to mean anything, for the reason that 
we have lost the sense of what it stands for. 
It has suffered as a great and dignified national 
festival by our very method of celebrating it. 
This is largely true also of Thanksgiving day 
and Memorial day. The same fate will befall 
Christmas unless we are careful to keep in 
mind all that the great festival means. It can 
not outlive the overthrow of the sacred prin- 
ciple on which it rests. A secular Christmas 
would be no Christmas at all. 

If it be true, as is held by some, that it is 
difficult to-day to get this thought into the 
minds of men, the fact only proves that 
we have already lost the true Christmas 

[13] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

idea. That this is so to some extent can 
hardly be doubted. Many of us have been 
captivated by the material aspect of the festival, 
and it means little to us except a season of eat- 
ing and drinking. Since the days of Dickens 
the social element — which is, however, vastly 
important — has been exaggerated. Or rather 
this is true of one side of the social element. 
For the day is social — social because religious 
— in the deep as well as in the superficial sense. 
The Christmas spirit is a social spirit. We can 
not, for instance, be kind, unless we are kind 
to some one else, kindness being a matter of 
relationships. We are, therefore, not wrong 
in emphasizing the social element. But we are 
wrong in making so much of the purely secular 
side of the festival. As has been said, if men 
do not see this it is because they are blind to 
the deeper truth, the truth on which everything 
else rests. Christmas means Christ, and the 
question for us all to ask is, what does Christ 
mean? For on the answer to that age-old 
question depends, as is believed,- the fate of the 
feast. To this conclusion logic seems inev- 
itably to lead. We are not honoring a senti- 
ment, not merely giving play to our emotions, 

[14] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

but celebrating a birthday, the birthday of a 
Being who has meant more to the world than 
any other being who was ever born into it. 
That is why the day is Christmas, and that is 
why it is a great church feast — one of the 
greatest of her feasts. If the birth had never 
taken place there would have been no Christ- 
mas. It is a holy day because it is the birthday 
of a King, of One who gave a new impetus and 
a new direction to human life. No man can 
keep the feast properly unless his soul is filled 
with reverence and bowed with humility. Joy, 
of course, there must be — but a solemn and 
a Christian joy. 

Of course, it is true that the narrowly ortho- 
dox often make very large claims — claims that 
can not fairly be allowed. For many, if not 
most, of what are known as the great Christian 
virtues, existed in the world long before Chris- 
tianity was born. Nothing is gained by ignor- 
ing that very obvious truth. God was always 
in man, and so of the godlike qualities. The 
light of which St. John writes always lightened 
men — never was wholly obscured. Even the 
golden rule is, we are told, found in earlier 
religions. Sacrifice has been the law ever since 

[is] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

the conscious life of man began on earth. Men 
have under all religions sacrificed themselves 
for their families, their country and their God 
— or their gods. The capacity for sacrifice is, 
therefore, native to all men. Gentleness, kind- 
liness and love are much more than two thou- 
sand years old. They are human traits — hu- 
man precisely because they are divine. All this 
must be frankly conceded. What would have 
happened had Christ not been born, we can not 
know. It is certain that what was then known 
as civilization was on the eve of a great break- 
down. The old religions — except the Jewish 
— had failed, and were passing away. Refer- 
ence is now made only to the Western world. 
Something, perhaps much, might have been 
saved. The Jewish religion at least would not 
have perished, and there is in that much that 
might have helped humanity to rise. But what 
would have taken the place of the religions of 
Greece and Rome ? Even with them gone it is 
possible that humanity, which in one way or an- 
other would have been guided, controlled and 
inspired by God, would have pulled itself to- 
gether and gone forward on its conquering 
march. As to that we can not say. All that 
[i6] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

we can say is that Christianity came at a time 
when it was greatly needed, and that it met the 
need with an almost ideal completeness. Large 
concessions are made here, at least by implica- 
tion. Yet it amounts simply to saying that 
God would and could have saved the race in 
some way. Of that we must be sure, if we be- 
lieve in God at all. 

What, then, is left? It has been said that 
Christmas means Christ. It remains to try to 
see what Christ meant to the world into which 
He was born, and what He means to us to-day. 
This is no place for the exploitation of theo- 
logical differences, but surely all Christians 
will agree that the birth of Christ meant 
and means a closer contact between God and 
man — meant and means "God with us," as we 
have been taught to believe. We learn that 
sacrifice is not simply a duty imposed by God 
on men, but that it is, if we may put it that 
way, a duty of God Himself. For there is the 
thought of sacrifice, not only in the cross, but 
in the birth and the whole life of Christ. We 
are taught to look on God, not as a remote 
king, not as an arbitrary sovereign, but as a 
fellow-worker and fellow-sufferer with us. 
[i7] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

This is the deeper meaning of the Incarnation 
and the Atonement — a suffering God. We learn 
that suffering is not necessarily the conse- 
quence of sin — that it may, indeed, be the very 
badge of innocence. Here we have a rebuke 
administered by God Himself to those mistaken 
souls who would eliminate pain, and sorrow, 
and sacrifice as always and necessarily evil, as 
indeed having no substantial existence. Christ- 
mas thus means joy, but — and this is the mys- 
tery of it — it means pain, too. Our very gifts, 
if they are worth anything, testify to that great 
truth, for they ought to involve sacrifice in be- 
half of those who need our help and sympathy. 
"Who did sin," asked His disciples once, "this 
man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" 
Here is the answer: "Neither hath this man 
sinned, nor his parents : but that the works of 
God should be made manifest in him." In 
other words, man's need is God's opportunity 
— and as God works through men, it is man's 
opportunity, too. Here, then, is one basis for 
the Christmas idea. In all our giving we 
should regard ourselves as the ministers of the 
divine power, and should use that power for 
[18] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

the benefit of those who most need to be helped 
and cheered by it. 

So there was, and is, a new birth of that di- 
vine power into tha world. We ought to be 
sure that we understand something of the 
method of its operation. This involves a con- 
sideration of Christian ideals, to which w T e are, 
for the most part, so faithless. It has been said 
that many of the so-called Christian virtues 
existed long before Christianity. But there are 
others which, if not new, were nevertheless re- 
vived, put into operation, and clothed with a 
new significance. The world into which Christ, 
was born was an old world. For centuries men 
had been fighting one another for the right to 
live, and, as a result, strength had been raised 
almost to the supreme place among the virtues. 
This whole method of getting ahead, as we 
say, was repudiated by Christ. He glorified 
weakness and defeat, blessed the mourners and 
the persecuted, and called men to the conquest, 
not of others, but of themselves. Men were 
taught to be indifferent to the prizes for which 
they had for ages been struggling so fiercely— 
a wonderful message to the Roman civilization 
of His day. There was involved in it an utter 

[19] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

reversal of the old standards. A new spirit 
was born into the world. The idea of preach- 
ing meekness and humility to the proud Ro- 
mans or the haughty Greek philosophers of the 
first century seems, even now, from the merely 
human point of view, preposterous. We are 
told that it is the duty of Christian teachers to 
adapt their message to the people who are to 
hear it — by which we mean that it should be 
softened down. That was not the way of 
Christ. On the contrary, He sharply chal- 
lenged the world's ideals at every point. Gen- 
tleness, kindliness, brotherly love, poverty, hu- 
mility, meekness, weakness, the worship of 
sorrow, love of children, helpfulness — these are 
something of what Christ means, of what 
Christmas should mean, to Christian people. 
The man to whom it does not mean this fails 
to get out of the season the joy that is in it. 
To think of it apart from its religious signifi- 
cance is to miss the whole idea. 

These new standards, so revolutionary are 
they, involve the conception of a new life, 
which we are bidden to believe is the life of 
God. When, for instance, Christ said, "I am 
the resurrection and the life," He meant the 

[20] 



A CHRISTMAS TALK 

divine life, the life which He taught us both 
by precept and example it was our duty to live. 
So we have the birth, not of a new set of vir- 
tues, but of a new life. And with it came, and 
comes, the power to live it. So the final note 
is one of victory, victory over ourselves, over 
all that is selfish and base and dwarfing. The 
idea may thus be expanded into the thought of 
the birth of a new race, with new ideas and 
ambitions and hopes and powers, a race that 
shall one day measure up to those Christian 
ideals which now seem so faint and far off, a 
race with the capacity to live the very life of 
God, to think God's thoughts after Him. This 
is the true victory of that faith which is to 
overcome the world, overcome it, not by fight- 
ing it, but by loving it; not by the assertion of 
self, but by the surrender of self. Such is the 
goal, distant though it may be, toward which 
the Christmas birth points. We talk much 
about reform, but what do our petty reforms 
amount to when compared with this divine 
process of regeneration that is going on all the 
while in the hearts of men? But to conclude: 
If we wish to have a really merry Christmas 
we must see if we can not get some of the di- 

[21] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

vine spirit, of which it is the manifestation, 
in our souls. We must try to be kinder and 
gentler and less selfish, try to cultivate the di- 
vinely childish attitude toward life, try to see 
the spiritual significance of the great truths 
about which we talk so much, and which ap- 
parently influence us so little. Christmas with- 
out the spirit of Christmas is not worth saving. 
And the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Him 
whose birth the day commemorates. A merry 
Christmas can be experienced only by humble, 
devout and thankful hearts. 



[22] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

IT would not be difficult to construct a very 
ingenious argument to prove that there 
could be no joy in the world if there were not 
sorrow, no virtue if there were not sin. There 
have been those who held that there could 
be nothing in the universe to perceive were 
there not some one to perceive it, and on 
the other hand, that there could be no per- 
ceiver if there were nothing to be perceived. 
But there is no ambition on the part of the 
present writer to aspire to such heights — or 
plunge into such depths. We may admit or not 
as we choose that evil is simply the obverse of 
good, but we can not deny that much of our 
pleasure comes from contrast. By this it is not 
meant that we are happier in our warm and 
comfortable houses because we are conscious 
that some poor beggar is shivering outside. 
That is not the thought. What is meant is that 
present joy is heightened when we contrast it 
[23] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

with our own past sorrow. Men are happiest 
when they are conscious of having escaped 
from some great evil or affliction. We may enjoy 
our warm houses — to recur to the illustration 
— better by thinking of the days when we our- 
selves suffered with cold, enjoy the well-fed 
state more keenly when it follows a condition 
of hunger. In other words, the background of 
unpleasant experiences makes our delight in 
pleasant ones all the more acute. Life is really 
very largely a matter of backgrounds — that is, 
it is a play or picture, and what would a play 
or picture be without background and setting? 
Beauty shines when contrasted with plain and 
severe attire, and not when smothered in gaudy 
raiment — a law which may be commended to 
the ladies, but of which many of them seem to 
be disregard fill. Men show themselves the 
truer artists when they prefer a combination 
of black and white. But this is dangerous 
ground, and it were well to pass over it quickly. 
The point need not be pressed, especially as it 
has no vital relation to the theme which it is 
proposed to elaborate. It may be added, how- 
ever, that the good taste of the lilies of the 
field has not yet been successfully impeached. 

[24] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

Many of us must have wondered how it was 
that the early English poets could write so 
charmingly and enthusiastically of spring — 
could write, too, with such manifest sincerity. 
We have our spring poets to-day, of course, 
and many of them give us beautiful verse. But 
often their worship of the goddess of spring 
is a mere pose, and in the work of even the 
best of them we seem to see a sort of attitudi- 
nizing. This is never the case with the old- 
timers — with such a poet as Chaucer, for in- 
stance. They revel in the new birth of the year. 
Each recurrence of the old phenomena seems 
to be to them a new creation, and they look on 
budding green and bursting bud almost as 
Adam looked on the world when his eyes first 
opened on it. Those who are familiar with the 
life of the English in those distant days ought 
to know the reason for this. But it may be that 
all have not drawn the very obvious inference 
from the well-known facts. To such the words 
of Mr. Quiller-Couch will be full of interest. 
They may be found in an article written by 
him entitled, The Secret of Oxford, and printed 
in one of the publications issued in connection 

[as] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

with the late pageant held in that ancient seat 
of learning: 

"Sunny Bologna glazed the windows of its 
university lecture rooms with paper; but the 
lack of light in an Oxford lecture room, or, for 
that matter, in every English house, from Sep- 
tember to May, must have been terrible ; and it 
is only by bearing this and other winter dis- 
comforts in mind that we can understand in 
Chaucer and every early poet the ever-present 
sense of springtime as an exchange of hell for 
heaven." 

Spring was to these men a new life in a sense 
that it can not be to us in these days of electric 
lights and modern methods of heating. For it 
meant for them an escape from a life that was 
a sort of death. Winter was a time of darkness 
and coldness, not only out of doors but in the 
house. Spring brought deliverance to men and 
women as well as to nature, and hence the rap- 
ture that must have been enjoyed by all, as it 
was sung by many. It was not simply the 
beauty, but the comfort, and brightness, and 
joy and life of the season that thrilled their 
souls. The dreadfulness of winter emphasized 
the delights of spring — by contrast. 

[26] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

Not only were the houses dark and cold, but 
it was almost impossible to escape from them 
in bad weather. The roads were wretched al- 
most past our imagining, as every one knows 
who has read his Macaulay. It took days to 
make a journey which can now be made in 
hours, even with the horse as motive power. 
We have the record of one journey — and that 
by royalty — of six miles which it required nine 
hours to accomplish. Thus again we see what 
a paralyzing effect winter had on the activities 
of the people, how it stopped their work, in- 
terfered with their pleasures and destroyed 
their comfort. Our poets, no matter how poor 
they may be, can know no such contrast, and 
so they can not sing of spring with the lusti- 
ness that marked the work of their great prede- 
cessors. One of the elements of exuberant joy 
is lacking. To the modern songster, who may 
chance to be a member of a comfortable or 
luxurious club, spring can not come as the re- 
viver — as a resurrection, not only of nature, 
but of his own soul and body. His experience 
lacks the old and bitter edge. He is pleased, 
and happy, and may even be impressed with a 
sense of awakening when spring comes to the 

[27] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

parks of his city, but the old rapture he can 
hardly know. That was the result of the ante- 
cedent cold and darkness and gloom, of the 
shut-in life. Our winters have joys of which 
our ancestors knew nothing ; so true is this that 
some people actually prefer winter. They 
would not have preferred such a winter as that 
which provoked Chaucer and the others to an 
almost spontaneous outburst of song — would 
have looked on it as something to be escaped 
from. So close, thus, is the relation between 
literature and life, and so direct is the influ- 
ence of material civilization even on the work 
of our spiritual masters, the poets. With the 
lessening contrast has come diminished inten- 
sity in the song. Spring is still lovely, no doubt, 
but it is not the escape, not the deliverance that 
it used to be. 

The application of the principle to condi- 
tions that prevail in the moral and religious 
world is so obvious that it hardly seems neces- 
sary to make it. One can not read the touching 
story of the prodigal son without being deeply 
impressed by the fact that joy is, to no small 
extent, a reaction from past sorrow. Perhaps 
this is not the highest sort of joy, for there is 

[28] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

much to be said for the elder brother who 
never transgressed his father's commandment, 
but it is certainly the keenest sort. Here again 
there is a sense of escape or deliverance. The 
shipwrecked sailor feels it in the moment of 
his rescue, and the humble and penitent sinner 
feels it as no other man can. The recollection 
of past hardships heightens, as the Latin poet 
has pointed out, present enjoyment. We are 
happy, not simply because our present condi- 
tion is all that we could ask, but also because 
it is no longer wretched — as it used to be. We 
are almost thankful for what we have escaped 
from, so greatly does the rescue contribute to 
our pleasure. The consciousness of a man that 
he has realized in his life any of that virtue 
which seemed to him so lovely, and at the same 
time so far off, while he was yet in his sins, 
must fill him with something of that ecstatic 
delight experienced by the poets after their 
winter's imprisonment had ended in the eman- 
cipation that spring brought with it. There is 
a salvation in both cases, and there can be no 
salvation unless there is something to be saved 
from. We can imagine perhaps something of 
the feeling of the sore beset garrison of Luck- 

[29] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

now when the pipes of the Highlanders, on the 
way to its relief, were heard in the distance. 
It is precisely so with the man who has climbed 
out of the degradation of life into some degree 
of purity and nobility of character. He, too, is 
saved from an enemy, and one of the most 
deadly character. This is the joy of the prodi- 
gal, the joy of every one that repents. Prob- 
ably it is the highest that human nature can 
experience. 

But analogies are ever deceitful, so it will 
not do to push them too far. A man may en- 
dure any amount of hardship and discomfort 
if these are felt by him to be necessary to the 
writing of great poetry. Nor is there anything 
wrong in, this hardship and discomfort when 
they are forced on him. But in the domain of 
religion and morals a different rule prevails. 
St. Paul makes this quite clear. "But," says 
he to the Romans, "where sin abounded, grace 
did much more abound : that as sin hath reigned 
unto death, even so might grace reign through 
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ 
our Lord." That is, it is the function of grace 
to overcome sin, to save men from sin, and to 
give them that intense joy of which mention 

[30] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

has been made. But, lest he should be misun- 
derstood, the apostle at once goes on to say: 
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue 
in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. 
How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any 
longer therein ?" It is better to live clean and 
honest lives every day than to know the joy 
which the desperately wicked soul feels when 
it has been, as we say, converted. We all need 
salvation in one way or another. But the point 
is that if we did not need it, it would be wrong 
to put ourselves in a condition from which 
we should need to be saved in order that we 
might feel the joy that flows from the con- 
sciousness of being saved. Chaucer might live 
from September to May each year in a cold 
and dark house without inflicting any wrong 
on his spiritual nature. But a man can not live 
in sin without paying the penalty. He richly 
earns the joy that comes to him. He has paid 
for it in years of shame and bitterness, and 
even when he is back once more in the Father's 
house he must at times be haunted by recollec- 
tions from which he would be glad to escape, 
especially the recollections of horrible wrong- 
done to others. That man, after all, is happi- 

[31] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

est who is truest to duty, most faithful to high 
ideals, most careful of his honor, and of that 
of the divine family to which he belongs. 

But there is a reaction in the spiritual world 
that is similar to that known by the great poets 
of old, and is, at the same time, innocuous. It 
is the reaction from sorrow to gladness. There 
are many who will deny that there is any rela- 
tion between sorrow and pain on the one hand, 
and joy on the other. Yet the connection is of 
the closest character. Indeed there is a sort of 
anguish in the highest pleasure — men may al- 
most suffer pain because of it. "Ye shall be sor- 
rowful," it was said to the disciples, "but your 
sorrow shall be turned into joy," and it was 
to be a joy that no man could take from them. 
Pleasure is, therefore, not the mere antithesis 
of pain, for it may grow out of it, precisely as 
the lilting, jubilant poetry in honor of spring 
grew out of the winter's night and cold. Scores 
and hundreds of illustrations might be given, 
but they are hardly necessary. The truly 
thoughtful man knows in his soul that genuine 
joy has its roots in the deepest experiences of 
life, that it is not a superficial thing, not mere 
mirth and laughter. There is a certain sober- 

[32] 



PLEASURE FROM CONTRAST 

ness, solemnity and reverence in it which dif- 
ferentiates it sharply from what religious writ- 
ers call the joy of the world, what the writer 
of the Book of Ecclesiastes spoke of as "the 
crackling of thorns under a pot." There is no 
Christian joy, no joy such as has been felt by 
the great sorrowful men of the world, in the 
forced and advertised cheerfulness, in the false 
optimism, in the smirk of content, with which 
we so often meet, and which we are bidden to 
emulate. No more joyful being ever lived on 
earth than the Founder of our religion, and yet 
He was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted 
with grief." It is well that we should have a 
philosophy of pain and sorrow that is true. We 
must look for it, not in any religion of the fu- 
ture, but in the religion of the past, the religion 
that teaches us to look on them as ministers to 
human perfection, as very elements in joy 
itself. 



[33] 



LENT 

LENT brings with it the thought of sin, and 
-'that is something of which people do 
not nowadays care to be reminded. Indeed, 
there are those who refuse to admit that there 
is any such thing. Religious systems are based 
on the theory that this world is altogether 
happy and joyous — that men are developed far 
beyond the old Christian idea. Nevertheless 
there are certain things connected with this sub- 
ject that are at least interesting. Possibly a 
consideration of a few of them may be profit- 
able. No man can read the Bible without being 
impressed with what at first seems to be the 
strange fact that so-called bad people are often 
more sensitive to the divine call than are so- 
called good people. By bad people is meant not 
mere sinners in the sense in which we are all 
sinners, but wicked men, men who are alto- 
gether out of the way. It behooves us to study 
such cases, especially during the season which 
[34] 



LENT 

is set apart for such study. For it was sin that 
tempted Christ in the wilderness, sin that made 
His sacrifice necessary, and sin that has spoiled 
and is to-day spoiling human nature. Thinking 
of this subject we must be surprised to see how 
people who had violated every law of God and 
man have nevertheless been quick to respond 
to the promptings of conscience, and eager to 
hear the truth about their spiritual condition> 
Let us take two illustrations. God sent the 
prophet Jonah to preach to the people of Nine- 
veh — "Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry 
against it ; for their wickedness is come up be- 
fore me." The message was delivered, immedi- 
ate repentance followed, and the city was not 
destroyed. That the sin of the people was great 
we know. That their repentance was sincere 
is proved by the fact that forgiveness followed. 
Never was there a prompter response to the 
voice of God speaking through one of His serv- 
ants. The other case is suggested by the words : 
"Then drew near unto Him all the publicans 
and sinners for to hear Him." Why did they 
come? What was it in Him that drew these 
men to Him? And why was He so kind and 
forgiving to them, and so gentle with them ? A 

[35] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

city that was so wicked as to have brought on 
itself the threat of doom was saved because of 
its humble hearing of God's word. And the 
publicans and sinners rejoiced to hear the mes- 
sage delivered by Him who was infinitely pure. 
Possibly we need to revise our judgments, 
possibly we should look for the hardened na- 
tures, for the careless and indifferent souls, 
rather in the churches than outside of them. 
Quite possibly there are in the world to-day 
millions on million§ of humble and contrite 
hearts that have no relation whatever to organ- 
ized Christianity. It was so of old, and it may 
be so now. The subject must of course be 
studied from two points of view, that of the 
preacher and that of the listener. In neither 
of the cases mentioned can there be any doubt 
that the voice of the preacher was the voice of 
God. The word of the Lord and nothing else 
was proclaimed by Jonah. There was no 
shrinking from the utter truth. Nothing was 
kept back or trimmed down. The personality 
of the preacher was lost in God, whose mouth- 
piece the prophet was. His mission was to 
bring infinite goodness and human wickedness 
face to face, and he performed it to the letter. 

[36] 



LENT 

There was no speculation in his preaching, no 
guessing, no explaining. The great facts of 
life were dealt with. The prophet had no doubt 
of the truth of His word. He took his stand 
on the fundamental truths of his time and of 
ours, and the city heard him. Our own Emer- 
son has said: "If the single man plant himself 
indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, 
the huge world will come round to him." That 
was what the prophet did. His instincts were 
sound, they were his — planted in him by God. 
Of course, Christ's words were the word of 
God. In all kindness it must be said that a 
great deal of the preaching of our time is with- 
out this deep earnestness, without the power 
of conviction. Men do not heed it because the 
preacher seems to be promulgating a message 
of his own rather than the eternal message of 
God. We get elaborate and often scholarly es- 
says, pious meditations, reviews of new books, 
discussions of current politics, but almost never 
the great cry from heart to heart, or rather 
from the heart of God to the heart of man. We 
have preachers rather than prophets, and even 
the preachers do not get hold of life. This is 
one reason why the divine voice is not heard 

[37] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

and obeyed — men are not sure that they hear 
it. Nothing can take the place of the prophet. 
The work of God's messengers is not done in 
the world. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall 
be overthrown" — how the words ring through 
the centuries! 

But the preachers are so much criticized that 
it seems fairer to look for the trouble in an- 
other direction. However, before coming to 
that, it must be said that there is too much re- 
liance on external things, such as government 
and law — and not enough on the inner spirit 
of man. Men are told, not that they shall lose 
their souls if they do wrong, but that the state 
and the church will combine to prevent them 
from doing what the church may think to be 
wrong. All the while the man may be a sinner 
at heart, no matter how correct (through com- 
pulsion) his conduct may be. There are many 
who believe that the church, has greatly lost 
in spiritual influence by its active participation 
in the work of legislation. Indeed, it is a con- 
fession of weakness when appeal is made to the 
state to compel Christian people to perform 
their Christian duties. The world may well 
wonder why it is that the Christian motive — 

[38] 



LENT 

which is the inward persuasion of the divine 
spirit — no longer seems to operate. More and 
more we are building up a system of law moral- 
ity, thus weakening the soul's capacity for vir- 
tue. The result is that the voice of God seems 
to speak, not through the Christian minister, 
but through the civil lawmaker. It may be that 
this explains in part the loss of power and in- 
fluence which the pulpit has undoubtedly suf- 
fered. Often it does not seem sure of its mes- 
sage; still oftener it does not seem sure of the 
saving grace and power of Christianity as an 
influence on the life of the soul. Christ never 
asked Caesar to help Him. On the contrary, 
when dominion over the kingdoms of the world 
was offered to Him He refused it. 

But the other phase of the question may well 
claim our chief consideration. There was 
something in the people themselves that made 
them listen, made them anxious to know the 
truth about themselves. No one is so far re- 
moved in character from even the most de- 
praved of mankind as not to be able to enter 
into the feelings of those condemned by the 
world as wicked — such people as those of 
Nineveh and the publicans and sinners who 

[39] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

thronged Christ's footsteps. There is in these 
a sense of alienation and loneliness which is not 
felt very keenly by those who are righteous 
according to the law, righteous even according 
to the external standards of the church. Most 
Christians think that they are pretty good peo- 
ple, that they have obeyed the law, are more 
or less faithful in the performance of their re- 
ligious duties, in short, are in the covenant. 
They know that they are children of the king- 
dom, and have been taught from infancy to be- 
lieve that this operates to bring them close to 
God, who is their Father, and into sympathetic 
relations with their brethren. On the other 
hand the publicans and sinners, the evil livers, 
must at times be overwhelmed with a sense of 
orphanage and loneliness. The promises are 
not to them. They are unacknowledged by their^ 
brethren. Bitterly conscious of their failures, 
they must long for another chance, and, in their 
best moments, crave fellowship with God. The 
man who once becomes conscious of his sin at 
that moment becomes conscious of his aliena- 
tion from God — as in the case of the Prodigal 
Son — and then he longs for restoration. When 
the way to that lies open before him he treads 

[40] 



LENT 

it with a joy which must be akin to rapture. 
Such a man, when he comes to himself, is, to 
go a step further, an honest man. Those to 
whom much has been forgiven are not deceived 
about themselves. The great words of religion 
mean much to them. In these cases there is a 
need of which merely respectable people can 
know nothing. The man comes to hate and de- 
spise both himself and his sin. So when he 
learns that there is still time for repentance he 
joyfully embraces the opportunity. The pub- 
licans and sinners were not thrown into despair 
by the contrast between their wickedness and 
the purity of their Master. When they got the 
revelation of a possible pardon they strove to 
•mend their lives. Perfectness was not some- 
thing to be shunned, but to be desired. Making 
no excuses for themselves they did not wish 
any one else to do so. This painful feeling of 
isolation, this desire for God, this obedience to 
His word, and this sincerity and honesty, all 
grew — and they grow to-day — out of the con- 
sciousness of sin. 

So when the word came to the people of 
Nineveh and to the publicans and sinners it 
was heard and heeded. The message was de- 

[41] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

livered in its purity and it went straight to the 
hearts of those who were prepared to receive 
it. And it is this consciousness of sin that Lent 
is meant to impress on men. They can not get 
it by comparing themselves with others — for 
that is but adding sin to sin — but they can get 
it by examining their lives in the light of the 
truth, by measuring themselves by the divine 
pattern. No man can face his own life hon- 
estly and bravely without seeing in it many 
indictments of himself. Men may be in the 
church, members of the household and yet far 
from God. The prodigal was the son of his 
father even when he was in the "far country." 
He had not lost his sonship. Yet how far from 
that father he was! It is so with every son of 
man. The far country lies all about us and we 
are not conscious of our exile. 

The fact that we are all tempted ought to 
make us more gentle in our attitude toward 
those who seem to be tempted beyond their 
strength. A knowledge of the world is a great 
help here. For it will teach us that in whatever 
guise temptation comes it is always the same 
thing — namely an appeal to the baser side of 
our nature. Instead of thinking of good 

[42] 



LENT 

and bad people it is truer and better to think 
of good and bad in the same individual. The 
business of man on earth is to starve the evil 
that is in him and to strengthen the good. And 
this involves discipline. Men must be trained 
for any task that they essay. The problem al- 
ways is one of developing that faculty which 
is to be used in the performance of the task — 
whether it be to run a Marathon race, to write 
an epic or to paint a masterpiece. In this case 
it is the spiritual faculty that is to be devel- 
oped. The question is one of weakening what 
is worst in us, and of bringing to supremacy 
all that belongs to our spiritual nature. That 
is the idea of Lent. For the whole of man's 
life, and at all times, must be governed by the 
principle of subordinating the lower to the 
higher. It applies during the whole year. The 
theory is not that we should "mortify our evil 
and corrupt affections" during Lent and give 
them free rein the rest of the year, but rather 
that the teaching and training of Lent may af- 
fect the whole course of our lives and give us 
a discipline and a set of habits which will steady 
us at all times. Especially is it important that 
men should, as was said at the beginning, get 

[43] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

into their minds a true conception of sin, for 
without that they can not understand their re- 
lations to God, to their fellowmen, or to the 
world in which they live. Thomas Carlyle said : 
"Name it as we choose: with or without vis- 
ible Devil, whether in the natural Desert of 
rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Des- 
ert of selfishness and baseness, — to such Temp- 
tation we are all called. Unhappy if we are not ! 
Unhappy if we are but Half -men, in whom 
that divine handwriting has never blazed forth, 
all-subduing, in true sun-splendor; but quivers 
dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders, 
in dull pain, in darkness, under earthly vapors ! 
Our Wilderness is the wide World in an Athe- 
istic Century; our Forty Days are long years 
of suffering and fasting: nevertheless to these 
also comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, 
if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, 
and the resolve to persevere therein while life 
or faculty is left." 



[44] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

IN an interesting discussion of the incom- 
pleteness of the gospels, the London Spec- 
tator truthfully says that "it is often with a 
sense of deep sadness that many minds reflect 
that upon many questions we have no decree 
of Christ." We are reminded that He had lit- 
tle or nothing to say of the home or home life, 
of the status of women, of the relations of men 
to the state, of international relations, of work, 
or even of the nature of God. All of which is 
perfectly true. It is natural, too, that we should 
wish to know the "views" of great teachers. 
But in that very thought is one of the explana- 
tions of the supposed incompleteness of the 
gospels. Christ had nothing to do with 
"views," but only with underlying principles. 
His purpose was not to formulate a scheme of 
life that should cover the whole field of human 
activities, but to lay down principles which 
should control life in all its departments, and 

[45] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

to breathe into men a Spirit which should "lead 
them into all truth" — truth which, under the 
divine guidance, they were to discover for 
themselves. Truth was to be the product, not 
of a complete revelation in all its details, but 
of a life lived in the fear of God. Men were 
to learn it through doing the will of God, learn 
it through obedience to the spiritual laws which 
Christ proclaimed. The education of the race 
did not cease with His departure from earth. 
On the contrary, it has been going on ever 
since. What He sought was to develop in hu- 
man beings the capacity to be educated. The 
first step was to put them into right relations 
with God, the source of all truth. That all 
truth was not revealed even by Christ is proved 
quite conclusively by His own declaration that 
there was still further truth into which men 
were to be led by the Spirit of God. Christ 
gave men the truth, but He also gave them 
power — which was to be used — to discover 
more truth. 

Here we have at least an implied condem- 
nation of the creedmakers, of those who regard 
the faith as what they call a "deposit," rather 
than a living thing which grows, and adapts it- 

[46] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

self to the growing intelligence of the race. 
There must be dogma, no doubt, but it ought 
to have to do with only the most elementary 
things in religion. For in the gospels is a very 
clear acknowledgment of the fact that revela- 
tion is progressive. Truth is being continually 
unveiled. Even those who hold the old creeds 
— and the old creeds are far better, because 
simpler, than the newer ones — do not hold 
them in the sense in which they were held even 
fifty years ago. Even though a certain state- 
ment of the faith continues to be accepted, men, 
as we know, reinterpret it for themselves. 
There are thus growth, change, development, 
and progress in the apprehension of religious 
truth. So it was that Christ endowed His fol- 
lowers with the widest liberty, so it was that 
He created a system — if it can be called a sys- 
tem — which is quite as adaptable to the condi- 
tions of our time as it was to those of His own 
time. Speaking of this phase of the subject the 
Spectator says : 

"Is it not possible that these very lacunae, 
these aching voids, as they sometimes appear 
in the teaching of our Lord, do make the elas- 
ticity of the gospel and fit it for all time? The 

[47] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

outward conditions of man's life and the orbit 
of his reason change with his circumstances 
and with the generation. The home may be 
the everlasting foundation of society, but the 
art of living in it must change. Work takes a 
different place in the lives of different individ- 
uals, ages and classes. One age literally can 
not put its mind to the theology which absorbs 
another. The hope of the hereafter must be 
expressed in changing imagery. The religion 
of Christ was clearly not designed to suit scho- 
lastic or subjected minds. Christ preached to 
the ordinary man, and appealed to the eternal 
authority of his better self. He did not under- 
take to unravel the whole tangle of human life, 
or to explain its discordant woes. But He spoke 
of a Spirit of Comfort who was also a Spirit 
of Truth, to whose influence He left His 
friends, sure that even the death which He 
dreaded was best for them and for Him." 

And this suggests the other side of the ques- 
tion. It has been seen that it might have been 
fatal to attempt to impose on men detailed 
statements of the truth for all time, as that 
would have been to deprive men of the disci- 
pline resulting from the search for truth. Now 

[48] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

it seems that it might have been as disastrous 
to try to regulate their lives. 

In both these particulars Christ manifested 
a very obvious reserve. His work was not for 
the people of His own generation, but for all 
time. The principles which He laid down are 
eternal principles, applying as directly to the 
men of our day as to the, men of His day. 
People were to grow into faith as well as into 
rules of action. It was a living faith, a liv- 
ing conduct and a living world with which He 
concerned Himself. The church has been less 
wise than her Master, less wise in dealing both 
with faith and with conduct. The Spectator 
puts the case well : 

" 'All things that I have heard of my Father 
I have made known unto you/ He said. It is 
useless to ask for more light than is vouch- 
safed. The church, however, was not satis- 
fied. She made haste to fill up these obvious 
lacunae. There were questions, we are told, 
which even the Pharisees durst not ask; there 
is none which the church dares not answer. 
Questions of politics presented no difficulty to 
ecclesiastics. They offered to keep every man's 
conscience, to make him a good Christian and 

[49] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

a good citizen by virtue of obedience alone. 
They defined the nature of the Creator of the 
universe with as much precision as one would 
analyze the atmosphere. They knew the glories 
of heaven, the terrors of hell, and the ransom 
system of purgatory. They had passports 
ready for each. What has been the result ? The 
heaven and the earth which they taught are 
passing away. The ecclesiastical heaven has 
ceased to attract or the ecclesiastical hell to af- 
fright. The moth and rust of time and the mil- 
dew of ridicule have destroyed them. Still, the 
hope of more abundant life which Christ prom- 
ised keeps men's reasons firm in the face of 
death and bereavement." 

And the remarkable fact is that many men 
who have drifted away from the churches alto- 
gether, and some who are even hostile to the 
churches, profess the utmost devotion to 
Christ. This indicates that there is something 
eternal in Him which is not to be found in the 
churches as they ordinarily present themselves 
to the world. Perhaps this is because He de- 
clared truths for all time in language appli- 
cable to all time, while the churches have often 
sought to imprison the truth in the current 

[50] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

philosophies of the day, Nicene, scholastic or 
reformation. Christ's doctrine has been inter- 
preted in the thought of an era, and not in the 
universal thought. 

Christ had hardly left the world before this 
passion for defining seized upon His follow- 
ers. They found these apparent gaps in His 
teaching, and sought to make clear and definite 
what He had, undoubtedly for a good reason, 
left indefinite. Finding that there was no spe- 
cific authority for a certain doctrine, they 
promptly inferred it from something that He 
did say. Sometimes the inference was fair, 
and sometimes it was strained, but was there 
need to make any inference ? "There were ques- 
tions/' we are told, "which even the Pharisees 
durst not ask; but there was none which the 
churches dare not answer." The difference in 
method is startling. And yet it must be remem- 
bered that public opinion often forced the 
church to define when she would have preferred 
not to do so. We have the same sort of public 
opinion to-day, the same demand that religion 
be clear, and easily comprehensible; that it be 
reduced to a system. Like Nicodemus of old, 
we say, "How can these things be?" And the 
[Si] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

question is but the prelude to a demand for 
definiteness. All through the centuries there 
has been this pressure on the church. It was 
never stronger than at the present moment. 
Men, whether theologians or not, have always 
been unwilling to admit that a thing could be 
at the same time indefinite and shadowy, and 
yet true. Christ felt the same pressure, but 
He refused to yield to it. As pointed out in the 
article under discussion, "only once, and that 
once is recorded by St. John alone, does He 
make any definition of the nature of God. God 
is a Spirit, He says, and must be worshipped 
in spirit." Here is a question that the churches 
have never hesitated to answer, as one may 
learn by consulting the Athanasian creed, for 
example, or the confessions of the reformers. 
"God is a Spirit/' says Christ. But in the 
thirty-nine articles He is thus defined : 

"There is but one living and true God, ever- 
lasting, without body, parts or passions: of 
infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the 
Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible 
and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead 
there be three Persons, of one substance, power 

[52] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

and eternity ; the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost" 

Can we not see the wisdom of Christ in thus 
refusing to "make things clear" ? And have not 
most attempts to make religion clear had the 
effect of muddling it? The gaps in the gospel 
may have been accidental, or they may have 
been designed. It may be that St. John gives 
the true reason for them, namely, that it was 
utterly impossible to record all that Christ said 
and did. "And there are also many other 
things/' the apostle says, "which Jesus did, the 
which, if they should be written every one, I 
suppose that even the world itself could not 
contain the books that should be written." 
Whatever the explanation of the gaps, it is 
clear that we have quite enough, have indeed 
the root of the whole matter. A word, how- 
ever, should be said of the question of conduct. 
The churches, especially since the Reforma- 
tion, have made the same mistake in prescribing 
rules for conduct that was made in seeking to 
frame accurate and exhaustive definitions of 
the faith. Here again it might have been bet- 
ter to follow Christ's method of reserve. Even 
yet we are laying down trivial rules of conduct, 

[53] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

rules to which few Christians pay the slightest 
attention. We want, not an inspiration, not a 
deep principle, not an appeal "to the eternal 
authority of" a man's "better self/' but a sort 
of schedule of duties. And here again there 
has been much inferring. We decide that a cer- 
tain thing is wrong — though Christ may not 
have condemned it at all — and then infer that 
it is condemned in His condemnation of wrong. 
There is always this attempt to control men in 
their thinking and acting, not by the truth, but 
by man-made rules. And so we deny to human 
souls that liberty which was to come to them 
through that truth which was to make them 
free. And further, we weaken the natural im- 
pulse to virtue which it was the purpose of 
Christ to create and strengthen in the souls of 
men. The man who really loved God and loved 
his neighbor, and did to others what he would 
have them do to him, would never go far 
wrong. And that is about the sum and sub- 
stance of Christ's moral teaching. 

The conclusion seems to be that reserve in 
religion is a good thing in itself. It is a quality 
which is very greatly needed at the present 
time. For the old passion for definition and 

[54] 



DIVINE RETICENCE 

exposition is still strong within us. Christ said, 
"All things that I have heard of my Father I 
have made known unto you." Are our modern 
doctors quite sure that all that they make 
known unto us is of the Father? Christ taught 
all what He was commissioned to teach, and 
yet we wonder why we do not get more from 
Him. There is a certain vulgarity in the free 
and easy and confident way in which many of 
us deal with the sacred things of religion. The 
very assumption that men can define God as 
though they had actually seen Him is offensive 
to the reverent soul. And this is quite as true 
of those who are so sure that in forbidding 
what is displeasing to them they are forbid- 
ding what is displeasing to God. In all these 
matters there is a certain restraint that ought 
to be observed. The very handling of things 
of eternal import and consequence ought to 
make men humble and self-distrustful. As Ar- 
nold's favorite, Bishop Wilson says: "First, 
never go against the best light you have; sec- 
ondly, take care that your light be not dark- 
ness." Perhaps we do not sufficiently heed the 
second part of the admonition. It is certain 
that from the earliest days of Christianity a 

[55] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

good deal of what has passed for light has been 
darkness. And the darkness has come, not from 
reserve, not from gaps in the revelation that 
we have had, but from our bold attempts to 
interpret the divine mind, both in the sphere 
of conduct and the sphere of faith. The ap- 
peal of the gospels is, therefore, all the more 
powerful by reason of the very "lacunae" that 
the Spectator finds in them, and that obviously 
are in them. 



[56] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

MANY people discuss Christianity as 
though it were an utterly new thing, 
quite without roots in the past. Their concep- 
tion of revelation leaves no room for the pro- 
gressive element, which is perhaps one of the 
most important elements in revelation. Only 
as we keep this in mind can we understand the 
religious life of the race. To fail to keep it in 
mind is to justify wholly the attacks made by 
skeptics on the Bible as an immoral book. We 
ought surely by this time to understand that 
truth is not revealed as a lightning flash, sud- 
denly illuminating the souls of men. The reve- 
lation is progressive. Men have to learn how 
to appropriate the truth, have to grow into it 
and up to it, and live in it. When, for instance, 
men tell us that God ordered the butchery of 
women and children; that He approved and 
even commanded treachery and bad faith to 
an enemy, we should realize that this is only 

[57] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

what imperfectly educated and comparatively 
unspiritual men believed was the will of God. 
With further training men changed their views. 
Take one instance. In the sixth chapter of 
Genesis we read: "God saw that the wicked- 
ness of man was great in the earth, and that 
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
was only evil continually/' 

So man's destruction was decreed. Man was 
evil, and, therefore, was to be blotted out. Two 
chapters later God is represented as saying : "I 
will not again curse the ground any more for 
man's sake." Why? Because "the imagination 
of man's heart is evil from his youth." In the 
one case he was to be destroyed because he was 
wicked, and in the other he was to be spared, 
and cared for, and pitied for precisely the 
same reason. Here, then, is an entire change, 
not in God, but in man's idea of Him. It would 
seem as though an interval of many years must 
separate these two passages. At any rate, there 
had been progress, and the progress had led 
to a nobler idea of God. In the later verse we 
have a foreshadowing of the Messianic con- 
ception — for the weak and sinful, we are told, 

[58] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

are not to be destroyed, but strengthened and 
saved. 

This growth of man in spiritual power and 
apprehension continues throughout the Old 
Testament, and it reached a truly sublime 
height in the prophets. More and more is faith 
related to conduct. Finally we have the whole 
thing summed up by Malachi, the last of the 
prophets : 

"I will be a swift witness against the sor- 
cerers, and against the adulterers, and against 
false swearers, and against those that oppress 
the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the 
fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger 
from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord 
of hosts." 

Truth was in the world always, but men 
could not see it in its true relations, did not 
or could not use it aright. God has not only 
been revealing Himself to men, but He has 
through the centuries been educating and train- 
ing men. And as a result of this education and 
training we have been able to make progress, 
to march forward. Now, without making any 
comparisons between the two religions, it must 
be said that Christianity, though a revelation, 

[59] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

did, in a very real sense, grow out of Judaism. 
Humanly speaking, there would have been no 
Christianity had there been no Judaism. Christ 
Himself said that He came not to destroy the 
law but to fulfil it. He looked on Himself as 
the realization of the true Jewish ideal. He was 
the long-looked- for Messiah. It was, not to the 
Gentiles, but to "the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel," that He believed Himself sent. He 
attended the worship of the synagogue. Even 
after the establishment of the Christian church 
we read that the apostles did the same thing. 
There was a strong Judaising element in the 
church. The epistle to the Hebrews was writ- 
ten for the purpose of proving that Christian- 
ity could easily be grafted on the old system, 
for the purpose of commending it in this way 
to the Jews. All who had anything to do with 
the church in its first days were Jews, and for 
a time they did not cease to be Jews when they 
became Christians. Many of the priests, we 
are told, believed. All this is plainly written 
in the New Testament, but how little we think 
of it! 

The debt of Christianity to Judaism is, there- 
fore, enormous. But it is not with this that the 

[60] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

present discussion is concerned further than to 
say that many Christians entirely fail to ap- 
preciate the obligation. To hear some of them 
talk you would think, not that their religion 
was revealed to them by God, much less that 
it was in any way related to Judaism, but al- 
most that they themselves had discovered it — 
so complete is their satisfaction with them- 
selves. This is the reason — or one of the rea- 
sons — why it is so necessary to take the historic 
view, and to consider the whole question in the 
light of the history of the thousands of years 
during which men have been struggling up 
toward light and truth. Religion, though re- 
vealed, has, like everything else, been the sub- 
ject of development. It is impossible to under- 
stand religion unless we get this idea firmly in 
our minds. Christ claimed to be the Son of 
David as well as the Son of God. And the old 
law was, we are assured by St. Paul, the apos- 
tle who set himself most strongly against the 
Judaising tendency, "our schoolmaster to bring 
us unto Christ." Only, he added, "after that 
faith is come, we are no longer under a school- 
master." But the schoolmaster did his work, 
and we ought not to forget that we owe him a 
[61] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

great deal. And, more important than this, we 
should realize that we can not understand our 
religion, any more than we can any other insti- 
tution, unless we know something of the influ- 
ences which went to its making, and a good 
deal of the conditions out of which it, at least 
in part, grew. We are fond of saying that the 
Bible is one, so close is the relation between the 
two Testaments. And yet we regard — though 
we know better — the two religions with which 
the Bible has to do, as entirely separate and 
apart, if not actually hostile to each other. But 
there is a unity here, just as there is a unity in 
the structure of the Bible. We ought to bear 
this in mind. Unless we do we shall make 
many mistakes, shall fail to understand the 
real nature of the religion which we profess. 

All this has an important bearing on the ef- 
forts that are now being made to reform and 
recast Christianity. For one of the first qualifi- 
cations that a reformer should possess is a 
knowledge of the thing that he proposes to re- 
form — a knowledge of its history. In some 
particulars the spirit of Christianity is identi- 
cal with the spirit of Judaism. We are told 
that in order to make religion useful to men, 

[62] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

and helpful to them, we must get rid utterly 
of the idea of sacrifice. Now, of course, the 
fact that sacrifice has from the earliest glim- 
mer of the dawn of history been a fundamental 
principle of all religions does not necessarily 
mean that it is to continue for ever to be a fun- 
damental principle. But when we remember 
that the Jewish religion is based on the idea of 
sacrifice, that this idea was emphasized strongly 
by Christ, that it passed over into Christianity, 
and that Christ spoke of Himself as the great 
sacrifice for the sins of the world, it does seem 
— and it is meant to speak respectfully — a little 
impertinent to suggest that we should strive 
to build up a Christianity in which sacrifice 
shall have no part. .The verdict of history is 
entitled to some respect. The universal experi- 
ence of men is entitled to even more. It seems 
fair that, in considering this question, we 
should ask ourselves whether, in view of the 
age-long struggle of men to realize God as the 
forgiving and pardoning Father, we ought not, 
even in our work for reform, to be guided and 
influenced somewhat by the spirit of all the re- 
ligions that have ever existed on earth. Juda- 
ism was not a religion of mere ritual. Indeed, 

[6 3 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

ritual was repudiated by the great men of that 
religion except in so far as it symbolized a 
humble and contrite heart. "The sacrifices of 
God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite 
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." This 
appeal to the past can not be disallowed. On 
this matter of sacrifice, the two greatest re- 
ligions that the world has known are in com- 
plete accord. And the need for sacrifice was 
not done away with, but rather intensified by 
Christianity. 

And the sacrifice was supposed to be a sacri- 
fice for sin — this being the principle on which 
Judaism and Christianity are both based. For 
thousands of years the religions that have con- 
trolled and still control the thought of the 
world have taught that man is weak, helpless 
and sinful. In that, they have been consistent 
with the inner feelings of all men who are not 
puffed up with spiritual pride, or lost in the 
mazes of the so-called new theology. Chris- 
tianity and Judaism both felt the need for sac- 
rifice. Both were almost overwhelmed with 
the sense of sin in man. Arnold's statement 
of this is most impressive. Hebraism is sup- 
posed to say that "it is all very well to talk of 

[6 4 ] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things 
in their reality, seeing them in their beauty." 
"But how is this," it is supposed to ask, "to be 
done when there is something which thwarts 
and spoils all our efforts ?" Here is the Arnold 
comment : 

"This something is sin ; and the space which 
sin fills in Hebraism, as compared with Hel- 
lenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to 
perfection fills the whole scene, and perfection 
appears remote and rising away from earth 
in the background. Under the name of sin, the 
difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering 
oneself which impede men's passage to per- 
fection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, ac- 
tive entity hostile to man, a mysterious power 
which I heard Doctor Pusey the other day, in 
one of his impressive sermons, compare to a 
hideous hunchback seated on our shoulders, and 
which it is the main business of our lives to 
hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old 
Testament may be summed up as a discipline 
teaching us to abhor and flee from sin ; the dis- 
cipline of the New Testament, as a discipline 
teaching us to die to it." 

In both there is this overmastering sense of 

[6 5 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

sin ; in both the realization of the need for sac- 
rifice as perhaps the deepest need of the human 
soul. So we find that the things which our 
modern doctors would eliminate have existed 
in the world for thousands of years and that 
they have always marked the religions of those 
people who are admitted by all to have had the 
greatest genius for religion. Such facts as 
these our reformers would do well to take into 
account. 

But they almost never do take them into ac- 
count. They begin with the attempt to reform 
religion and end by attempting to make a new 
religion. For a religion from which the old 
Hebraic notions of sin and sacrifice, of God 
as a pardoner and of man as a being needing 
and craving pardon, are eliminated, can not 
with any truth whatever be spoken of as Chris- 
tianity as Christ understood it. The man who 
does not adore the perfection of God and at 
the same time feel an awful sense of his own 
unworthiness is hardly qualified to say what 
Christianity should be. Centuries before Chris- 
tianity was born into the world we hear men 
crying out for help from the depths of their 
own felt sinfulness. And Christian history tells 
[66] 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

us of good and great and noble men who have 
held precisely the same attitude. It really does 
seem foolish to seek to identify Christianity 
with mere cheerfulness or happiness, or to 
think of it as simply a moral code. It is to the 
Christian precisely what the religion which it 
succeeded was to the great and holy men of the 
old dispensation. From Genesis through to 
Revelation this thought of the need for recon- 
ciliation to God runs. Both religions at their 
best taught and still teach, not that God has 
turned away from men, but that men have 
turned away from God. The underlying spirit 
is the same in both, the only difference being 
in the application. Possibly a closer study of 
the thing to be reformed would lead us to see 
that reform is perhaps not so necessary as we 
sometimes think. The difficulty is, not so much 
with the principles of our religion, as with the 
failure of men to live up to them, their failure 
to apply the principles to their own lives. At 
any rate, five thousand years of Judaism and 
two thousand years of Christianity are not to 
be so easily disposed of. They are the greatest 
facts in the life of the world and they seem to 
grow greater as the years pass. Instead of de- 

[6 7 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

voting so much time to making them over to 
meet the intellectual demands of our own day 
we should rather strive to make our lives con- 
form to their high and spiritual standards. 



[68] 



AN EASTER THOUGHT 



PROBABLY no one would be surprised to 
learn that the early Christians rather resent- 
ed the growing popularity of their faith, and re- 
gretted that so many pagans had come into the 
church. Indeed, they might have done so with- 
out being guilty of the sins of narrowness or 
exclusiveness. It was not that they did not 
wish the whole world to be saved, not that they 
did not realize something of the brotherhood of 
man, but that they saw what seemed to be a 
decline of spirituality, and a loss of that sense 
of unity and fellowship which is always found 
in an organization that is the subject of perse- 
cution. When Christianity became fashionable, 
became the religion of the empire, it was in- 
evitable that men should be led into the church 
by various motives, not all of them sincere. So 
we can imagine an old and broken servant of 
Jesus Christ, one who had endured the most 
exquisite torture rather than deny his Master, 

[6 9 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

wondering what was to become of the faith 
when he saw persecutors turn Christian only 
after Christianity had grown too strong to be 
persecuted. There was none of the binding 
force of adversity, none of that terrible sifting 
which makes so strongly for sincerity. This 
feeling has always been in the minds of men 
associated in the advocacy of noble causes. 
Those who fought the battle when there was a 
real foe to face never have much respect for 
those who join the army after the battle is 
over. Those who fight for truth "ere her cause 
bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be 
just," can not in their hearts have much love 
for those who withhold their allegiance till 
truth is firmly established on her throne. No 
one admires the "multitude" that "make virtue 
of the faith they had denied." Many of the 
early Christians must have felt in just this 
way about the new converts of a more prosper- 
ous and less perilous time. 

It is so with the celebration of Easter. We 
have carried our rejoicings to such a pitch, and 
have given them so materialistic and fashion- 
able a form that it is hard to convince oneself 
that the people who take part in the Easter pa- 
[70] 



AN EASTER THOUGHT 

rade, or who blossom out in Easter bonnets, can 
have any idea at all of the fundamental truth 
that lies at the bottom of the whole Easter 
thought. That idea is newness of life, the idea 
of a life so new and sweet and powerful and 
transforming as to be different even in kind 
from that with which we are so familiar. Leav- 
ing the miraculous element altogether to one 
side — for these little sermons are intended for 
men of all faiths or no faith — it must neverthe- 
less be said that no religion is worthy of the 
name except in so far as it gets this new life into 
the human soul. This is the great aim and 
object of Christianity. We are to die to sin 
and to rise to righteousness, to set our affec- 
tions on things above, to live to the Spirit, and 
ever to walk in newness of life. Christ came 
to the earth to give men this new life, and to 
give it to them more abundantly. He was the 
life of men. It is in Him that Christians must 
live if they are to rise to the possibilities that 
He put before humanity. The life of the king- 
dom is set in absolute opposition to the life 
of the world. The life of which He spoke, and 
which He longs to impart, is more than meat, 
and is far greater than that life of which we 

[71] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

are bidden to take no thought. It was in this 
superb faith that the first Christians lived, and 
fought, and suffered, and died. It is to this 
faith that every true man, whether he calls him- 
self Christian or not, is pledged by the divinity 
of his own nature. And yet when we say — and 
this has been intimated here — that "it had been 
easier once than now" to believe, we get our 
answer from St. John speaking through the 
lips of Browning. He said : 

"Ye know what things I saw ; then came a test, 
My first, befitting me who so had seen : 
'Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, 

Him 
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? 
What should wring this from thee ?' — ye laugh 

and ask. 
What wrung it ? Even a torchlight and a noise, 
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, 
And fear of what the Jews might do! Just 

that, 
And it is written, T forsook and fled.' 
There was my trial, and it ended thus." 

So there are tests that meet men at every stage 
of their religious experience. And yet St. John 
could truly say, considering his treason long 

[72] 



AN EASTER THOUGHT 

years after it had taken place, "Ay, but my 
soul had gained its truth, could grow." And 
that raises the question which is so puzzling to 
men to-day. Do people desire the new life? 
They can not desire it unless they feel the need 
for it. On that point hangs the doubt. We 
can feel conscious of no such need unless we 
can say that our "soul had gained its truth, 
could grow." For the inability of the soul to 
grow proves that it is not in contact with the 
new life. Men whose religion is of this type 
can not be said to have gained the truth, and as 
it is that truth which creates the divine hunger 
in the soul of man for the new and higher life 
there can be no such life in a soul untouched 
by that truth. We know that the risen life of 
Christ utterly changed the character of the 
apostles, and that it was in the strength and 
power of that life that they set about the con- 
quest of the world. They were, indeed, re- 
newed and strengthened, filled with courage, 
inflamed with zeal, and urged on to victory by 
a faith that nothing could shake. Thus there 
is never any difficulty in recognizing the fruits 
of the life which Christ promised to His disci- 
ples. It is in the world to-day, but it is not 

[731 



DAY UNTO DAY 

found — and this is the point — in all Christians. 
Easter is celebrated by many Christians who 
are weak, faithless, cold, and spiritually dead. 
Of the new life they are almost wholly devoid. 
Whatever else Easter stands for, it certainly 
stands for the spiritual in human life. And 
that element is one that always needs emphasiz- 
ing. We talk of this age as an age of material- 
ism, and so it is. But what age was not ? The 
difficulty is not with our time, but with our- 
selves. Men are very much what they always 
were. So there is the constant and ever-press- 
ing need to dwell strongly on the really im- 
portant facts in life, to make men see what is 
their true glory, what their high destiny. The 
spiritual writers are the ones that ought always 
to claim our chief attention. Men immersed in 
the cares and anxieties of life can get an in- 
spiration from such a writer as Thomas Carlyle 
which will, if they interpret him aright, lift 
them out of themselves. Here is a man who 
fought a lifelong battle with the unrealities 
of life, and who never, no matter how much 
beset by pain, and sickness, and poverty — and 
fashion — once lowered his flag. He has been 
called a destructive critic, but he never at- 

[74] 



AN EASTER THOUGHT 

tempted to destroy anything that ought not to 
have been destroyed. Shams were not to him 
the only unrealities — they were but symbols of 
that deeper unreality in which we all, even the 
honestest, live. He is valuable, not so much 
for what he said — though that is helpful and 
inspiring— as for his whole attitude toward 
life, with its mummeries and "respectabilities." 
He was the valiant servant of truth as he saw 
it, and he strove with all the might of his 
strong nature to see truth as it was. To him 
nothing was of much value apart from the soul 
of man. Even man's unhappiness he traced 
to his greatness, to a soul-hunger in him that 
nothing but God could satisfy. The possession 
of the whole visible universe would not, he 
said, make one shoeblack "happy." 

Harshly as he often spoke of men, no one 
who ever wrote esteemed humanity so highly, 
no one has more truly appreciated its infinite 
capacities and yearnings. The whole burden 
of his message is grief at seeing such a divine 
being as man so much concerned about things 
that have no relation of any kind to his true 
nature, that is, to his spiritual nature. That 
his preaching was better than his performance 

[75] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

is a thing concerning which we had best keep 
silent. For what man's preaching is not, if it 
is worth anything at all ? And yet Carlyle was 
a noble figure in the life of his time. He made 
no concessions, was willing to be poor and 
lonely and neglected, scorned fame, and wrote 
only what he thought the world needed to hear, 
regardless of whether it sold or not. Life 
pressed heavily upon him, and he was gloomy 
and pessimistic. But prophets have not, as 
a rule, dealt in optimism. And life always 
presses heavily on those who try to play the 
part of a man in the world, on those who wage 
war on life's hollownesses and insincerities. 
The question is not whether we like him or 
not, but whether we need him. Those who, in 
such a time as this, put his message from them 
as though it were of no value or significance, 
make a very great mistake. For he is one of 
the few men of the last century to whom it is 
worth while to listen. We need to ponder long 
this man's glorification of the common man, of 
the worn and broken worker. To him there 
was eternal warfare between the mandates, 
"work thou in well doing," and "eat thou and 
be filled." He bids us heed the former. And 
[76] 



AN EASTER THOUGHT 

so he is the greatest spiritual force among the 
prose writers of our time. 

It seems well to honor the heroes of the 
faith, and Thomas Carlyle was — and is — one 
of them. If ever man believed in the Eternal 
God, in the perfectibility of human nature, in 
the moral order of the universe, in the suprem- 
acy of the spiritual, it was the old man whose 
long residence in Chelsea made that part of 
London glorious. He was always "on the side 
of the angels," always true to his convictions — 
which were sound. Always he faced the beasts 
of materialism with a dauntless heart. Our 
life — what is it, unless dominated and per- 
meated by the spiritual influence ? Surely it is 
only a "vapor" that passeth away. This is the 
knowledge, and the only knowledge that is 
divine. There is no way to get it into men ex- 
cept by making them profoundly and divinely 
discontented with things as they are. We can 
not get this message from the easy, cheerful 
optimists who refuse to see the plainest facts 
of life. We can get it only from those who, 
like Dante, have had the vision of hell. So we 
may conclude that if our religion does not body 
forth to us the realities of life it is worth noth- 
[771 



DAY UNTO DAY 

ing to us. To go to church, to give a little 
money to keep up the services, to profess 
Christianity with our lips, and all the while 
to live in bondage to the flesh, slaves to that 
life which Christ came into the world to de- 
stroy — this is to blaspheme the most sacred 
things. "I am the resurrection and the life," 
said Christ. Unless his followers partake of 
that resurrection and share in that life, unless 
they humbly endeavor to live up to the truth as 
it has been revealed to them, they have no life 
in them. So the Easter message is a call to 
reality, to that utter truth which we all ought 
to desire and to seek, to that noble life which 
the true servants of God have always lived. 



[78] 



THE 
BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH 

WHITSUNDAY, or Pentecost, is the fes- 
tival kept in commemoration of the birth 
of the Christian church. True to the scientific 
method, the men who are trying to relate the 
church more directly to life, are going back to 
the very beginning of things — are studying 
origins. The so-called progressives who object 
to this method forget that the best way to find 
out what the church ought to be is to find out 
what its Founder meant it to be, and to learn, 
as far as possible, how He was understood 
by those to whom He spoke. For the more 
closely the church conforms to the original pat- 
tern, the nearer will it come to being the true 
church of Jesus Christ. No one, not even the 
most extreme radical, proposes to depart from 
that pattern; no one professes to do anything 
more than to conform wholly to the mind of 
Christ. Now it is not proposed to go into any 
question of organization, important as that is. 

[79] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

For, though there is a great longing for church 
unity, it is not believed that men are prepared, 
as yet, to deal with this question in an unpreju- 
diced way. So much has happened in nineteen 
Christian centuries, and so many systems have 
been built up which engage the affection and 
loyalty of men, that it seems hopeless to look 
in the near future for organic unity, greatly as 
it is to be desired. But some things stand out 
so clearly on the face of the record as to chal- 
lenge the attention of the most careless reader 
of the account of the Pentecostal baptism. For 
instance, there was unity of the closest kind. 
For they "were all with one accord in one 
place." They were also expecting and looking 
for one and the same thing, namely, the out- 
pouring of the divine influence. That the mes- 
sage was for all, that the church was to be 
catholic, is also clear. 

But the immediately important thing, and 
the practical thing, is that the first gift to the 
church, the thing, indeed, which made it the 
church, was the gift of spiritual power. And 
this gift, as St. Peter reminded the people, was 
in direct fulfillment of the words of the 
prophet Joel : 

[So] 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH 

"It shall come to pass in the last days, saith 
God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh ; 
and your sons and your daughters shall proph- 
esy, and your young men shall see visions, and 
your old men shall dream dreams." 

The church was to be a prophesying and a 
teaching church, and that first of all. It was 
to be the storehouse of divine power, the trans- 
mitter of that power, and the applier of that 
power to the life of the world. But more im- 
portant yet, those who were admitted to the 
church were promised but one thing — that is 
that they should "receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost." The spiritual power in both cases 
came first. The church was to be, not rich or 
fashionable, not primarily a dispenser of char- 
ity^ but the abode of the Spirit of God. And 
those who were admitted into its fellowship 
were not told that they should have earthly 
blessings, but they were told that if they re- 
pented and were baptized "for the remission of 
sins," they should receive that same divine 
power. A greater gift it would have been im- 
possible for any of them to conceive of. When 
they had that, they had all. It was this that 
they coveted, this that they longed for. And 
[81] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

what commended the church to them was the 
proved fact that it had the power to confer 
this great gift. "For the promise/' the apostle 
said, "is unto you, and to your children, and to 
all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord 
our God shall call/' And the promise was for- 
giveness of sins and the outpouring of the di- 
vine Spirit. So "they that gladly received his 
word were baptized; and the same day there 
were added unto them about three thousand 
souls." Thus was the beginning made, thus 
did the Christian church come into being. 

The very great importance of the features 
referred to in what has been said will be appre- 
ciated by all who are familiar with the de- 
mands made on the church at the present time. 
People insist that it is not enough for it to 
preach, prophesy, proclaim forgiveness of sins, 
and bestow the gift of the Spirit — nor are they 
content with these blessings which were once 
so highly valued. Christianity and the church 
must, as they say, "do something" for them. 
Men will not, we are told, go to church, unless 
it is made worth their while, unless they can 
"get something." And the things which the 
church does for men, the things which it gives 

[82] 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH 

them, are not enough. It must keep them well, 
make them prosperous, entertain them — in 
other words, must meet a demand which has in 
it nothing of a spiritual nature. Thus the 
trouble is, not so much with the church, as with 
the popular attitude toward the church — or 
with the church as it has been influenced by its 
desire to conform to that attitude. We demand 
anything and everything of the church except 
the one thing which it was divinely commis- 
sioned to do — namely, to regenerate men 
through the influence of the Spirit, and to be- 
stow on them that Spirit as a purifier, and a 
guide into all truth. It is vastly important, 
therefore, that in our schemes for the recon- 
stitution of religion we should keep this su- 
preme function of the church in the first place. 
It is supreme. The account of the founding of 
the church makes it very clear that it was 
founded primarily for the purpose of bringing 
men into direct and vital relation with God — 
that it might strengthen, console, inspire and 
help them by His Spirit. Its business, to take 
one case, is not to reconcile capital and labor, 
but so to enlighten the consciences and to sway 
the hearts of individual employers and em- 

[8 3 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

ployees that they will be able to compose their 
own differences — if, indeed, any arise. Its 
message to both might well be that of its Master 
to the young man who asked Him to settle a 
property question for him — "Beware of covet- 
ousness." Always its appeal must be to the in- 
dividual soul, always its effort must be to spir- 
itualize life. 

But there is, of course, the question as to the 
effect of the great influence which the church 
was designed to exert. Suppose the life to 
be imparted, we have still to inquire as to the 
working out of that life, as to its fruits. Re- 
curring to the case of the first converts, we find 
that after they had received the gift "they con- 
tinued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and 
fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
prayers." Here we have faith, corporate 
union, the eucharist, and prayer, all of which 
seem to have been regarded as products of the 
spiritual life, as well as nourishers of it. But 
out of it all grew a spirit of helpfulness, this, 
too, being the result of the operation of the in- 
fluence exerted by and through the church. 
Finally there come the spirit of mutual helpful- 
ness, and the social sense, for we read : 

[8 4 ] 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH 

"And all that believed were together, and 
had all things common; and sold their posses- 
sions and goods, and parted them to all men, as 
every man had need." 

What every man sought was, not something 
for himself, but rather some power and ability 
and opportunity to help others. That was what 
the new life meant — a sacrifice of self for 
others. The question with these first Chris- 
tians was, not what they could get, but what 
they could give. All that they wanted to get 
was the spirit which would prompt them to 
give. So it was that the new and divine life 
flowered into faith, union, worship, prayer, 
and a spirit of loving beneficence. This 
is the divine order, an order which can not be 
reversed — though many reformers are seeking 
to reverse it — without making the church alto- 
gether different from what it was in the be- 
ginning, from what it was intended to be. The 
theory is that God's work in the world must 
be done through men, and that therefore the 
first thing to do is to get and fit men to do it. 
This is the work of the church preeminently. 

The trouble with many men is that they are 
not satisfied with what St. Paul calls the "fruit 
[85] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

of the Spirit/' that same Spirit which the 
church imparts. "The fruit of the Spirit," we 
read, is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen- 
tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance." A life which is adorned with these 
graces is a true Christian life, the only sort of 
life which the church pretends to develop in 
men. Going thus back to those far-off times, 
it ought to be possible for us to see that what 
many are demanding is, not the church as it 
originally was, but a new church, molded to 
their own desires. And generally it must be 
said that a great many people, as they would 
not be satisfied with that wonderful gift which 
so thrilled the souls of those who first received 
it, so they would not be content with "the fruit 
of the Spirit." Our point of view has changed, 
and our ideals have suffered some impairment. 
We miss the whole idea of the Christian re- 
ligion when we think of it as merely an agent 
for the relief of physical wants. Those who 
think of the church as an institution designed 
to give them anything else than that which it 
gave on the day of Pentecost, and who con- 
demn it because it does not keep them in health 
[86] 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH i 

and prosperity, does not insure them an earthly 
reward for spiritual excellence, are, indeed, far 
out of the way. And not a little of the philos- 
ophizing on religious subjects at the present 
time is vitiated by this error. The church 
is weak in so far as it has yielded to the modern 
demand, just in so far as it has neglected "the 
word of God" that it might "serve tables." If 
the church has been overorganized at all, it is 
on the side of social service. It has developed 
in men the feeling that it is a mere dispenser of 
bounty — that its members ought to receive 
everything and give nothing. 

So the first days have many important les- 
sons for Christian people. By studying them 
we can see, at least to some extent, both what 
the church is and what it is not. The fact that 
so many of us have come to think of it as the 
mere insurer and guarantor of earthly happi- 
ness of itself proves that we have forgotten 
first principles altogether. It is important that 
we should go back to them in our work for re- 
form and readjustment. And before we decide 
on any radical changes it would be well to con- 
sider two points, and to consider them with 

[8 7 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

some care. The first is that we should judge 
the church of to-day, not on the basis of its 
failure to meet modern views, but wholly on 
the basis of its departure from the original 
standard. We must do this, if what we seek is 
the strengthening of the church as a Christian 
institution. And the second point is, that we 
ought very carefully to ask ourselves how far 
the people have themselves been responsible for 
the supposed failure of the church — responsible 
because they have endeavored to turn it from 
its real purpose, to make it, not the bestower of 
divine gifts, but the imparter of earthly bless- 
ings. Having thus lowered the institution, we 
can not be surprised if, in its weakened state, 
it operates to strengthen still further the false 
ideas which the people have. Finally we should 
try to have clear notions of what we want. If 
we want the church which Christ put into the 
world, the church which was born on Pente- 
cost, the church that conferred on people the 
Spirit of God, and which made them fruitful, 
not in property, but in good works, we can get 
it But the first step in this direction is a rev- 
erent study of the simple account of the found- 
[88] 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHURCH 

ing of the church, of its work and influence, 
and of the relation of the people to it. If men 
Avant something else, they ought not to deceive 
themselves into thinking that they want the 
Christian church. 



[8 9 ] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

NO criticism of The Religion of the Fu- 
ture, as expounded by Doctor Charles W. 
Eliot, can be at all adequate which does not 
frankly admit that the whole tendency of the 
race for ages has been in the direction of many 
of the positions assumed by him. We have 
seen a gradual narrowing of the realm of the 
supernatural ; a weakening of authority as the 
sufficient foundation for faith; a partial sub- 
stitution of character for creed, of life for 
dogma, so that even the orthodox are quite as 
ready to say that one's creed depends on one's 
life as that one's life is the product of one's 
creed. The change has come slowly — as was 
proper — so that many of us do not realize that 
there has been any change. Yet it is marked. 
The influence of science on religion has been 
profound. The study of the Bible has done 
much to alter the views that men once held 
concerning the sacred writings. And the study 

[90] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

of the history of society and religion has made 
it plain that many things that used to be ac- 
counted for on supernatural grounds are now 
known to be capable of a rationalistic explana- 
tion — and thus, as has been said, the super- 
natural element in religion has dwindled. Once 
everything was supernatural. Gods and 
demons filled the air. Omens were the most 
powerful influence in the life of man. Up to 
a time which is within the memory of men yet 
living something of this old savagery — often 
much of it — colored the religious thought of 
even civilized people. To-day only those who 
are most ignorant, those who have studied 
nothing — not even their Bibles — are held by the 
old theories. Doctor Eliot is, therefore, very 
obviously in line with a tendency that has been 
operating for countless ages — and never more 
powerfully than in the last fifty years — and all 
over the world. Many will no doubt deny this, 
but it is believed that the statement is true. 
The appeal is to conditions as they actually 
exist. It is also to the soul of every man who 
has kept track of what has been going on in 
his own inner life. We know that we do not 

[91] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

view religion as our fathers did. We know 
that supernaturalism has been on the decline. 
Thus much must be frankly conceded. And 
yet at least two questions remain which can 
not be so easily disposed of. We have to con- 
sider what will be the effect of education in 
the future and what line it will take, and 
whether the supernatural element will, as Doc- 
tor Eliot thinks, entirely disappear. It is easy to 
say that because things have been moving in a 
certain direction over a long period of time 
they will continue so to move. But of that we 
can have no assurance. The movement may 
reach its limit, and so stop — or it may be di- 
verted. On the whole, it seems reasonable to 
believe that there is something in religion which 
can not be accounted for, which reason can not 
explain, and that in this direction there will be 
limits to the effects of enlightenment. We are 
not likely to get much more light on what are 
called the mysteries of religion, but there is the 
chance that the intellectual temper of men may 
be so profoundly affected as greatly to modify 
their attitude toward religious truth. There are 
people — and we all know them — who, when 
they learn that many of the old truths which 

[92] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

they once held are no longer truths, at once 
conclude that nothing is true. The skeptical 
spirit is, therefore, likely to become stronger, 
especially in the minds of those who, for some 
strange reason, think that doubt is a proof of 
intellectual strength. Education is thus likely 
to change our opinions, not so much by adding 
to our knowledge, as by altering our point of 
view. And in substituting skepticism for faith 
it is likely to alter our point of view for the 
worse. But is the narrowing of the super- 
natural realm to continue till supernaturalism 
is wholly extruded from religion? Those of 
us who have been trained in the old religion 
may be pardoned for believing that even after 
education has been pushed to its uttermost 
length, there will be something beyond it and 
above it, something comprehensible only to the 
eye of faith. What have disappeared are crude 
conceptions of the supernatural rather than the 
supernatural itself. 

Because, for instance, men no longer believe 
that thunder is the voice of God, shall they be 
asked to believe that God does not speak to 
their souls? If He does, are men greatly to be 
blamed for believing that 'there is something 

[93] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

supernatural, or at least supranatural, about 
the communication? As for God Himself, 
what is He if not supernatural? The high 
priest of the new religion tells us that we must 
not look on God as "an enlarged and glori- 
fied man," must abandon entirely the old an- 
thropomorphic view. What, then, is He ? He is 
not man, and yet He lives. Doctor Eliot speaks 
of an Eternal Deity, so great and high that we 
must not identify Him "with any human being, 
however majestic in character." Plainly, if He 
exists at all, He is above man — far above him. 
We can not know Him by any of the ordinary 
processes. And yet Doctor Eliot writes* of Him 
quite calmly, and in doing so takes, as many 
will think, the most stupendous miracle 1 of all 
miracles for granted. There is- reason to think 
that though the new religion may slough off 
some of the superstitions: of the old — and so be 
simply the old religion purified and reinter- 
preted — it will not be without its supernatural 
element. There is a vast gulf between the 
mind that believes that everything is supernat- 
ural and the mind that believes that nothing is 
supernatural. Probably one belief is quite as 
false as the other. Primitive men have merely 

[94] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

exaggerated and misapplied a great truth, 
namely, that God is an infinite spirit, and that 
there is a spiritual world, and a spiritual nature 
in man. This truth is quite likely to persist 
in the minds of even the most highly educated 
men. There may be limits to rationalism, «as 
there are limits to supernaturalism, and one 
can conceive that the work of the future is to 
define the frontier between them. At any 
rate it is rash to predict that the new religion 
will be without the supernatural element. Many 
will think that such a religion would not be a 
religion at all, but simply a code of morals, 
beautiful, perhaps, but quite untouched fay 
emotion. 

Many of the things* objected to by Doctor 
Eliot are no longer believed by intelligent peo- 
ple. On the other hand, many of the things on 
which he insists are plainly taught in all the 
churches of the land. Into these details it is 
not now proposed to go. For even if they 
could all be satisfactorily adjusted the new 
scheme would be objectionable because of the 
philosophy on which it is based. Here the new 
religion is utterly revolutionary, for it repudi- 
ates the old idea of sin entirely, an idea that 

[95] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

is fundamental in the old religion, and in every 
religion that ever existed. We have been 
taught that revelation came to men — or that 
they made religions, whichever you please — 
because they were weak, were conscious of 
their weakness, and conscious also of their need 
of help. It was — at any rate this has been the 
theory — the sense of sin that drove men to 
God. But it now seems that man is not a fal- 
len, being. Perhaps not, but we know — for 
the social scientists have made this quite plain 
— that man has climbed out of depths of degra- 
dation that are simply unimaginable to us. 
And it may be that the fall, or the breakdown, 
or the catastrophe came when intelligence first 
dawned in him, when the moral sense was first 
awakened, and that thus his very rise in the 
scale of being was a fall. It is certain that men 
have, for countless ages, always felt the pres- 
sure of what they called sin, have always 
longed and prayed for help in their fight with 
the evil of which they were conscious in their 
own natures. So they have longed for God, 
for a Saviour, a Redeemer, an Avenger. It 
may be doubted whether a man who has never 
experienced these feelings in his own soul, who 

[96] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

has never realized how strong is the pull to 
wrong, is qualified to formulate a new religion. 
Men wanted God, not because they were good 
and pure and strong, but because they were bad 
and stained and pitifully weak. So God came 
to them. So religion was born into the world, 
born out of the agony of souls oppressed with 
their own sins. To such the extremely pleas- 
ant and polite religion now offered will not 
make much of an appeal. 

It is curious that Doctor Eliot should, as he 
clearly does, think of pain as chiefly physical, 
for he discusses it in connection with anaesthet- 
ics. Pain to him is something to be got rid of as 
always and necessarily evil. It is to be hoped 
that those who are led astray by his reasoning 
on this subject — which is, be it said with all hu- 
mility, sadly superficial — will read the essay en- 
titled The Problem of Pain, by the Reverend J. 
R. Illingworth, which is to be found in the vol- 
ume Lux Mundi. It is true, of course, that men 
have been led into a wicked and shameful sub- 
mission to distressing conditions by the prom- 
ise of joy hereafter. But, nevertheless, pain, be 
it physical, mental, moral or spiritual, plays a 
mighty part in the development of character. 

[97] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

The great Christian virtue, love, involves pain 
in the very thought of it. The poets have made 
this clear. 

Pain, discipline, self-sacrifice, adversity — 
to think of getting along without these is to 
banish Christ, whose teachings Doctor Eliot ac- 
cepts. For it was He who blessed the mourn- 
ers, the afflicted, the persecuted. Nothing 
worth while was ever done except at the cost of 
great pain to the doer. "Our freedom," says 
Mr. Illingworth, "our laws, our literature, our 
spiritual sustenance, have been won for us at 
the cost of broken hearts, and wearied brains, 
and noble lives laid down." Pain lies at the 
very heart of love, it is the promoter of the 
spiritual life, is — it may almost be said — the 
price paid for excellence as it is the path to per- 
fection. That surely is the Christian view. Pain 
— unless we mean purely physical pain, as Doc- 
tor Eliot seems to mean — can no more be got 
out of the world than joy can. If we can not 
get rid of it, we must have a religion that will 
teach us to endure it, to get benefit out of it, to 
transform it into character. Christianity has 
given us the wonderful idea of a suffering 
God. In the crises of life men will turn to such 

[98] 



DOCTOR ELIOT'S RELIGION 

a God rather than to the God of the new re- 
ligion. 

Finally, there is no suggestion in the new 
religion of the re-creation, the regeneration of 
character through the transmission of a new 
life to the world. Men are to be good and 
happy, but apparently there is no power to 
come to them from God, no life to be trans- 
mitted through Christ and the church. In other 
words, the historic, institutional, organic side 
of Christianity is entirely eliminated. Here 
again the new religion is revolutionary. Pos- 
sibly it is time for a revolution, but it is going 
fast and far to ask men to accept a religion in 
which there is no recognition of sin, no power 
to use pain for beneficent ends, no sacramental 
relation between God and man, and apparently 
no kingdom of grace. Now Christianity may 
assume this form within the next hundred 
years — as to that no one can say. But ad- 
mirable as the scheme is in many ways, it is not 
Christianity to-day. Taking the account which 
Christianity gives of itself, we must believe 
that it is a supernatural religion, that Christ is 
its center and source, that its main purpose is 
to reconcile men to a Father from whom they 

[99] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

have been separated by sin, that it almost seems 
to glorify pain and to exalt it into a sort of 
sacrament, and that it seeks to strengthen and 
purify the life of man by getting into his soul 
the life of the Eternal God. It may be false, 
may be passing away. It has been through 
many storms, has suffered many changes, but 
its essential features are what they were in the 
beginning. In a world from which, as Doctor 
Eliot admits, sin and sorrow and pain have not 
yet been banished, the old religion will make a 
wider appeal than will the new. When we get 
rid of the things which seem to make Chris- 
tianity necessary to men and women who have 
tasted the bitterness of life — and who has not? 
— we may all be prepared for a religion based 
on the theory that the world is a pleasant place 
enough and that there are no "miserable sin- 
ners'' in it. An essay might be written on the 
need for faith — which is practically excluded 
from Doctor Eliot's religion — but it is enough 
now to suggest that to demand that everything 
be plain and rational is to "stumble at truth's 
very test." The new religion seems very trans- 
cendental and far away. 

[ioo] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

THE world is always full of men whose 
chief anxiety seems to be to have others 
know how great they are ; to have others know 
that certain great words were spoken and cer- 
tain great deeds done by them. They are ex- 
ceedingly fearful lest they shall not be under- 
stood, lest their "records" and achievements be 
not appreciated. The mere thought that others 
may, as they say, get credit for the work which 
they themselves have done is a constant torture 
to them. The image of self fills the entire field 
of vision. They are hungry for recognition, 
greedy for praise. If they are reformers they 
are consumed with the desire to be known as 
the authors and only sincere champions of the 
reforms in which they have been interested, 
and for which indeed they may have fought 
valiantly. Others may have done much, may, 
indeed, have started the agitation out of which 
the reform grew, but the claims that these men 
[ ioi 1 



DAY UNTO DAY 

may make are never admitted by those who 
want all the glory for themselves. For it is 
glory that they yearn for and must have. The 
work is nothing. The getting credit therefor 
is everything. This weakness, which it would 
be foolish to pretend is not very common, is 
distinct from egotism, for egotism — at least at 
its worst — is love of self for self's sake. In 
this case the aim is to reflect credit and honor 
on self through the medium of great work well 
done. There is egotism in it, to be sure, but it 
is not all egotism. And yet this craving for 
glory is proof of a weakness in the character 
of the man who feels it, at any rate, of the man 
who gives way to it and seeks to gratify it. 
The world has not been wrong in contrasting 
devotion to duty with love of glory. To do the 
work, let it go, and cease to think about it — 
such should be man's attitude toward life. 
Good work, as well as alms, should be done in 
secret — as far as possible. To wish to label 
all our achievements with our own names is 
not much nobler than to desire to write or 
carve our names in public places. Most men 
get all the credit they deserve, so why be dis- 
turbed? It is better to let the work speak for 
[ 102] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

itself. If it is valuable it will live of its own 
vitality. 

This feeling is not to be too severely con- 
demned, for it is very natural. Most men have 
it. And all are glad when the world praises 
them for a noble action. This desire for the 
commendation of men is also a stimulus to 
endeavor, though not the best or the most trust- 
worthy stimulus. But many a great service 
would not have been rendered had the man per- 
forming it known that his name would never 
have been heard of in connection with it. There 
is thus a wholly natural and human dread of 
obscurity, and this probably has as great an 
influence on people as the craving for reward 
or love of fame. This is the negative side of the 
question, for not only do we wish to be known, 
but we hate to be not known. Honesty, there- 
fore, compels the admission that, though the 
feeling is an evidence of weakness, it is never- 
theless one in which most men share. Honesty 
also compels the admission that the feeling may 
sometimes work out into beneficent results. 
But it is nevertheless true that a great service 
performed in response to such prompting, 
though it may be a great service, is not greatly 
[ 103] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

performed. For no act can be said to be 
greatly done unless we can feel that it would 
have been done even had no one known any- 
thing about it, even though it might — as great 
acts have often done — have brought shame 
rather than honor. What this world needs, 
and always has needed, is the man who can be 
trusted in the dark, who will do his work as 
well when he knows that he will get no credit 
for it at all as when he knows that it will re- 
dound to his honor. Such faithfulness as this 
can hardly be looked for in those who are in- 
spired solely, or even largely, by the motive un- 
der discussion. And that is the reason why it 
is not a sufficient motive. The men who can 
be depended on are those who are inspired by a 
sense of duty rather than by a desire for glory. 
Unless there is this feeling of responsibility to 
the work itself it is not likely to be well done 
except for reward — money, fame, or the praise 
of men. 

There are some very practical consequences 
involved, only one of which, however, need 
now be referred to. The wage motive to ac- 
tion — no matter what the wage be — is wholly 
inadequate, as every one knows. For it is a 
[ 104] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

difficult matter to get men to give a fair re- 
turn for the wages they receive. And the 
more they think of wages the less satisfactory 
does their work become. The reason is plain. 
It is that they measure the work by the reward, 
and not at all by the standard of perfection. 
The question with men too often is, not one of 
doing the very best possible, but of not giving 
more than they are paid for. Such a worker 
not only fails to give a fair return for his 
wages, but he fails to take any pride in his 
work, or to get any joy out of it. In his essay 
entitled, The Religion of the Future, Doctor 
Eliot says : 

"One of the worst chronic human evils is 
working for daily bread without any interest in 
the work, and with ill will toward the institu- 
tion or person that provides the work. The 
work of the world must be done; and the great 
question is, shall it be done happily or unhap- 
pily? Much of it is to-day done unhappily. 
The new religion will contribute powerfully 
toward the reduction of this mass of unneces- 
sary misery, and will do so chiefly by promot- 
ing good will among men." 

It will contribute nothing to this end un- 

[ 105 j 



DAY UNTO DAY 

less it breeds in men a real pride in their work 
for its own sake, develops in them a character 
that will make them satisfied with the approval 
of their own conscience, and unhappy when 
that approval is withheld. A good man is one 
who would be good even though there were no 
public opinion to sustain or coerce him. The 
judgment of the world is very fallible, as is 
proved by its frequent enthusiasm for shams, 
and its crucifixions of true heroes. But a 
man's own conscience, provided he has done 
nothing to blunt or stifle it, is a safe guide. As 
long as the master of the vineyard approves, 
what does it matter what the other workers 
think? The man who devotes his whole time 
to cultivating their good opinion is almost 
certain to do his task poorly, and to lose the 
approval of his own conscience. It is not well 
to be greedy for fame, or to think overmuch 
of the impression one makes on the world. 

In St. John's gospel we read that Christ's 
brethren once said to Him : "Depart hence, and 
go into Judea, that Thy disciples also may see 
the works that Thou doest. For there is no 
man that doeth anything in secret, and he him- 
self seeketh to be known openly. If Thou do 
[106] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

these things, shew Thyself to the world." 
Very human it is. We read further that "nei- 
ther did His brethren believe in Him." "Shew 
Thyself to the world" — it is the old cry. Flere 
was a case in which one might have thought 
that this would be done. For it was important 
that men should know and accept Christ for all 
that He claimed to be — to accept Him as the 
revelation of God in a very high sense. He, 
Himself, though He had been reluctant to per- 
form miracles, and had instructed those on 
whom they had been wrought to keep them 
secret, had nevertheless on one occasion said, 
and the words are reported in this same gospel 
of St. John : "Believe that I am in the Father, 
and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for 
the very works' sake." His credentials were 
His acts, as well as His words. It was import- 
ant that the world should believe in Him. To 
do a thing, and then to let it be known that He 
had done it, might contribute very powerfully 
to the establishing of His claims. So it will be 
seen that great issues were involved. His un- 
willingness to blazon Himself and His achieve- 
ments to the world had resulted in a lack of 
faith in His brethren. And yet Christ put it 
[107] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

all from Him. His works were not His, but 
the Father's. His doctrine was not His, but 
"His that sent Me." So great had been His 
shrinking from publicity that even His breth- 
ren almost taunted Him. And they did refuse 
to believe in Him. "Go into Judea, that Thy 
disciples also may see the works that Thou 
doest" — "if Thou doest these things, shew 
Thyself to the world." He did show Himself 
to the world, but it was as a despised victim, 
and not at all as a conqueror. And the amazing 
thing is that out of His apparent defeat sprang 
the triumph of a great cause — His cause. The 
work lived, and He lives also. Careless of 
what the world might think, unwilling to sacri- 
fice His ideal even for the sake of converting 
the world, He was true to His divine nature. 

Much of the work of this wonderful Being 
is wholly unreported. For the same evangelist, 
St. John, says: "There are also many other 
things which Jesus did, the which, if they 
should be written every one, I suppose that 
even the world itself could not contain the 
books that should be written." Here, then, is 
the Christian ideal. It teaches the duty — and 
it is a hard duty, none harder — of utter self- 
[108] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

forgetfulness. Considering His life, we ought 
to see what a power there is in this gift — or 
grace. Even mere men, when they were truly 
great, have had some measure of it. Inventors 
have thrown their discoveries on the world 
without a thought of their own fame, much 
more without a thought of money. The world 
has known great statesmen who have toiled for 
nations throughout the course of a long life 
wholly careless of the impression they were 
making on humanity. It is so even of dis- 
tinguished soldiers. So it seems quite fair to 
say that the greater the man the less subject is 
he to this vice of self-glorification. And this 
is as true of good men as of great men. They 
have not thought much of what they were to 
get, but a great deal of what they ought to do. 
And what they did, they did because they felt 
that it ought to be done, and not because they 
felt that it would reflect creditably on them or 
bring them fame. The standard is high, for 
it is the Christian standard, but men can ap- 
proximate to it. There is, of course, the old 
temptation to claim power and excellence in 
order to win the confidence, allegiance and sup- 
port of the world. Men seem at times almost 
[ 109] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

driven by the demands of the multitude into a 
publicity which may be hateful to them, and 
thus may strive for it even from a good motive. 
But even this is a mistake. The temptation, 
whether it comes from our own inner nature 
or from those who insist that we shall prove 
our right to rule, ought to be resisted. And we 
shall be stronger and our work better because 
of the resistance. 

Such a disposition would contribute very 
greatly to our peace of mind, as well as to the 
peace of the world. For the strife for fame 
causes as much bitterness as any other kind of 
strife. St. Paul relates kindness and self- 
forgetfulness to each other when he says : "Be 
kindly affectioned one to another with broth- 
erly love; in honor preferring one another/' 
And the relation is close and obvious. This 
quality of self-forgetfulness is not easy to ac- 
quire in a democracy where men are peculiarly 
dependent on the good will of others. It seems 
almost necessary, for instance, that there 
should be a good deal of self-advertising in our 
campaigns. If we are to get votes, we must 
show that we are worthy of them, and how 
can we show this except by showing what we 
[no] 



THE LUST FOR FAME 

have done? So the old appeal, "shew thyself 
to the world/' comes to us all every day of our 
lives, and never more powerfully than now. 
And yet men should not respond to it. The peo- 
ple themselves soon weary of men who are all 
the while telling them of what they have done, 
of their good qualities, of their courage, of 
their devotion to the masses. And wise men — 
and there are many of them — begin to suspect 
that claims which must all the while be thus 
bolstered up have little that is substantial to rest 
on. On the contrary, when they find out for 
themselves that a man is a true man, that he 
has done many things of which he never told 
any one — much less boasted of — they at once 
conclude that he is to be trusted, and ought to 
be honored. There is great human wisdom in 
Christ's words : 

"When thou art bidden of any man to a wed- 
ding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a 
more honorable man than thou be bidden of 
him ; and he that bade thee and him come and 
say to thee, Give this man place ; and thou be- 
gin with shame to take the lowest room. But 
when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the 
lowest room ; that when he that bade thee com- 
[iii] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

eth, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up 
higher : then shalt thou have worship, in the 
presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be 
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be 
exalted." 

Our virtues and our benefactions should be 
left for others to discover. 



[112] 



CONSCIENCE 
AND INTELLIGENCE 



A FRIEND whose handwriting reveals noth- 
•**• ing as to his identity sends an unsigned 
note in which he suggests certain considera- 
tions touching conscience, intelligence and will. 
"Man's ideas about God," he says, "vary just 
as do man's ideas about anything he may ap- 
ply his thoughts to. It is therefore necessary 
that we hear or read the thoughts of the best 
minds humanity has produced. And that is 
why good literature is such an important fac- 
tor in this world. That is why the Bible has 
held its own through the centuries." Without 
going into metaphysics it may be said that con- 
science does not teach us what is right and 
wrong, but rather that we must do what is 
right and avoid what is wrong. We are happy 
when we have done what we believe to be right 
and unhappy when we have done what we 
know or fear to be wrong. And it is conscience 
that makes us happy or unhappy as the case 

[113] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

may be. But our ideas on the subject come 
from our intelligence. We know what is right, 
but we know it through our intelligence. In- 
telligence tells us what is right, and conscience 
tells us that we ought to do what we know or 
have found to be right. This is a distinction 
which the best writers on this subject have al- 
ways made, but it is one that is not often ob- 
served. As a consequence there is much 
confusion of thought. By cultivation, exercise 
and education conscience can be made more 
sensitive, not as to what is right and wrong, 
but as to man's duty with reference to them. 
But the power to decide what is right and what 
is wrong resides in the intelligence which, for- 
tunately, is the most easily educated of our 
faculties. A few illustrations will perhaps 
serve to make the case clear. The matter is 
important, because on a right understanding of 
it depends the soundness of all our educational 
methods and processes. The theory is that we 
get our moral ideas through our intelligence, 
and our determination to apply those ideas in 
our life from our conscience. Conscience is a 
spur or a restraint, and not a revealer. 

It is probable that men's consciences were 

[114] 



CONSCIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

never keener, more sensitive or more imperious 
than in the old persecuting days when men and 
women were burned for heresy. These punish- 
ments were believed by the people to be neces- 
sary for many reasons — to save the sinner from 
the wrath to come, to protect society against 
the vengeance of God, who would be angered 
by toleration of infidelity, and to prove the 
faith of the persecutors. The case was per- 
fectly clear. But we no longer burn men to- 
day — at least not for heresy. What is the dif- 
ference? It lies wholly in the fact that our 
intelligences have been educated so that we now 
believe that to be wrong which we once be- 
lieved to be right. We know more about God, 
more about the truth, more about right and 
wrong. Our minds make a different report to 
our consciences, and as a result we know that 
we are now right in having ceased to perse- 
cute. So the conscience is not offended by the 
refusal to persecute. It would be shocked by 
such things as were once done by men as mere 
matters of course. Conscience has not been 
educated, but the mind has been. We do the 
right now, but we have different ideas as to 
what the right is. And ideas are not the chil- 
[«5l 



DAY UNTO DAY 

dren of the conscience, but of the intellect 
This is why it is such a sin to limit intellectual 
freedom; to attempt to set bounds to knowl- 
edge. For without intellectual freedom there 
can be no progress, and had there been no prog- 
ress we should still be persecuting people for 
opinion's sake. Not only that, but we should 
think that we were doing right when, as a mat- 
ter of fact, we should be doing grievous wrong. 
God indeed speaks to us through our conscience 
when He tells us that we must do the right and 
eschew the wrong, but He speaks through our 
minds when He tells us that this is right and 
that is wrong, this is true, and that false. "Let 
every man," says the apostle, "be fully per- 
suaded in his own mind. ,, The appeal was to 
the mind. Conscience tells us to do the right. 
The mind, under God, tells us what is right. 

We have an admirable illustration of all this 
in the gospel. A doctor of the law asked Christ 
what he should do to inherit eternal life. The 
appeal was to the law: "What is written in 
the law? How readest Thou?" The answer 
was precisely what it should have been : "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
[116] 



CONSCIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbor as thy- 
self." "Thou hast," such was the reply, "an- 
swered right; this do, and thou shalt live." 
Then followed the query, "Who is my neigh- 
bor?" The answer we know. It is contained in 
the parable of the man who fell among thieves, 
and was relieved by the Samaritan, a man who 
was an entire stranger to the sufferer, and so 
not, in the usual sense, a neighbor to him at 
all. The exposition was purely intellectual, and 
it was addressed to the mind of the inquirer. 
It was not enough for him to know the law, 
not enough to have lived by it as he had inter- 
preted it. For he had interpreted it wrongly, 
and it was the interpretation that was corrected. 
"Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was 
neighbor unto him that fell among thieves?" 
The answer was an inference or conclusion, an 
intellectual thing — "He that shewed mercy on 
him." The man was convinced by reason and 
logic. His whole vision was expanded — as- 
suming him to have been an honest inquirer. 
His mind was enlightened with "the light of 
the everlasting gospel." If he was converted, 
his conscience worked in the light of the fuller 
revelation which had poured in on him. He 

[117] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

was told that he was neighbor to any one on 
whom he had the chance to show mercy. It 
was for him to say whether his conscience 
should keep him true to this new and expanded 
conception of duty. We know our duty through 
our minds. We are driven or goaded or al- 
lured into performing it by our conscience. We 
must know the divine law before we can do it. 
The man in the gospel story knew the law, but 
he did not know it in its fullness or in all its 
necessary implications. So he was enlightened. 
The very fruitful and suggestive remarks, 
which are the theme for these wandering re- 
flections, offer an excellent chance for the use 
of the Socratic method. For instance, the 
writer says that conscience is "God in us." 
Then follows this: "There is a conflict, says 
Richard Wagner, between 'the will and the in- 
telligence' making us dual beings. Intelligence 
is of God; 'the will' is human. But duality 
causes conflict — unity, peace. Is it too much to 
say that the higher intelligence must win in 
the end?" So conscience is "God in us," and 
intelligence is of God. If intelligence is of God 
in a sense in which will is not, it must more 
nearly approach the godlike. Does it come as 
[i-i-8] 



CONSCIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

close to it as does conscience, which is "God 
in us?" If so, they are both of God, both God 
in us, and so are the same thing. They must, 
on this theory, be the same thing, unless God 
differs from Himself. However, there is an- 
other conclusion, as there often is a way of 
escape from the conclusion to which Socrates 
would force you — for he was not above play- 
ing with words in a humorous way. It is that 
God reveals Himself in many ways to men and 
through many channels. And perhaps it is safer 
to say that intelligence, will, and conscience are 
all of God. Intelligence may be as defective 
and unenlightened as the will is. But when 
the will is brought into subjection to the will 
of God, and when the intelligence is enlight- 
ened by the truth of God, both are alike divine. 
And so is conscience. In a sense it is true that 
there is a conflict between the intelligence and 
the will, but that is not the real conflict. A 
vitiated intelligence and a rebellious will may 
work in perfect harmony, as may also a divinely 
illuminated intelligence and a submissive will. 
There may be a conflict between these two hu- 
man capacities, and there may not be. It is not 
necessary or inevitable. True harmony is to be 

[up] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

found, not so much in the reconciliation of the 
will and the intelligence, as in the reconcilia- 
tion of both to the will and intelligence of God. 

Of course, when we speak of rebellion 
against God we usually think of the will as 
the rebel. That may be the case, but still it 
must be insisted that the will is no more hu- 
man than the intelligence is — and no more di- 
vine. Both are implanted in us by God, and 
both may be made ministers of the divine will. 
We share both with God. It is true that the 
conflict is in our own souls, but it is not wholly 
one between intelligence and will, but rather 
one between our knowledge of what is right, 
and our determination — in which the intelli- 
gence shares — to do wrong. It is not easy to 
find a better explanation of the phenomenon 
than that given by St. Paul in his epistle to the 
Romans : 

"For that which I do, I allow not : for what I 
would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do 
I. If then I do that which I would not, I con- 
sent unto the law that it is good. Now then it 
is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth 
in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my 
flesh), dwelleth no good thing: for to will is 
[ 120] 



CONSCIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

present with me; but how to perform that 
which is good I find not. For the good that 
I would, I do not : but the evil which I would 
not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, 
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwell- 
eth in me." 

Here it seems that the will is not blame- 
worthy, as the apostle says, "to will is present 
with me;" he willed to do what was right or 
good. But so deplorable was his failure, so 
great was the war within him, that he was 
forced to conclude that there was an alien in- 
fluence at work poisoning intelligence, con- 
science and will all alike — namely, sin. The 
conflict was due to the fact, not that there was 
a conflict between intelligence and will, but one 
between the human and divine in his own na- 
ture. The harmony in that nature was broken 
because the harmony between that nature — all 
of it — and God was broken. The lack of har- 
mony within is the result of the lack of har- 
mony between God and man. We may know 
the best and will the best, and yet not do the 
best. Will, conscience and intelligence may all 
be godlike. Or they may be so perverted, mis- 
used and debased as to become devilish. This 

[121] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

is true of the man as a whole and not simply 
of any part of him. It is not well to break up 
our nature into parts any more than it is sound 
to think of the mind as made up of different 
faculties. 

Considered in another way, and from an- 
other viewpoint, we may get some light on the 
subject from a remark of Carlyle. He says 
that man's unhappiness comes from his great- 
ness and as he puts the matter we can hardly 
quarrel with his conclusion. The theory is that 
there is a continual conflict between what we 
are or have, and what we would be, or desire. 
There is this craving in us all for perfection, 
and when we fall short we seem to miss the 
only mark that is worth hitting. The sense of 
defeat discourages and disheartens us. This 
was the case of the apostle precisely. He knew 
what he ought to be, what he was capable of 
being, what God meant him to be, and yet he 
counted himself not to have attained. So he 
asked, "Who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death?" But his greatness was that he 
could conceive perfection, desire it, and press 
forward to it. And that is the greatness of 
man — the greatness out of which his unhappi- 
[ 122] 



CONSCIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 

ness grows. Here, then, is the source of the 
discord which so greatly distresses and disturbs 
even the humblest and weakest of those who 
are honestly trying to do their duty in this 
world. It is no mere war between intelligence 
and will, but rather war between the lower and 
higher parts of their own nature — between the 
sin which would master them and the God in 
them who would vanquish the sin. The strug- 
gle is between man as he is and man as he 
would be, and might be. Most great men, great 
even in earthly affairs, have been sad men, and 
for precisely the same reason — namely that 
they have had this sense of being balked in 
their purposes. No matter what they do their 
goal seems far ahead of them. The same thing- 
is true in the spiritual life. And the higher the 
man's aspiration the more conscious is he of 
failure. But one can fight the fight and keep 
the faith, and so enjoy something of peace and 
harmony. 



[123] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

THERE can, of course, be no doubt that 
the change which science has wrought in 
the view that men have of the universe has 
greatly modified their theories of prayer, and 
perhaps weakened the instinct which once led 
men to pray. We now know that the world is 
a world of law, that nothing happens by chance, 
and so people no longer believe, as they once 
did, that all prayer is answered in the sense 
that whatever is prayed for is granted. We no 
longer look on the ill that may happen to those 
we think of as our enemies as punishment in- 
flicted on them by God in response to our pray- 
ers. Nor do we feel — at least it is to be hoped 
we do not — that whatever blessing comes to 
us comes because we deserve it — because we 
are favored by God above our brothers. In 
these ways, and in many others, our attitude 
has suffered a very marked change. So it is 
that some men have ceased to feel that there is 
[ 124] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

any value in prayer, while others have refined 
it into a mere indefinite communion with 
"whatever gods there be" — into a sort of merg- 
ing of ourselves into the divine nature. Yet it 
seems fair to say that if, as is true, the discov- 
eries of science have not overthrown religion, 
neither have they made prayer, even in the 
sense of asking for something, a futile and 
foolish thing. The trouble is, not so much with 
science and its effects, as with the false idea 
that religious people have had of prayer. The 
subject is important, and so a brief discussion 
of it may be helpful. Nothing whatever is to 
be said against prayer considered as communion 
with God, except that that is not all there is of 
it. Probably that is the highest form. The 
best prayers are those that are general, those in 
which there is the minimum of request and the 
maximum of the pouring out of the heart and 
soul to God. Prayer which is an approach to 
the divine is better than prayer which is a ve- 
hicle for the transmission of gifts. It is mani- 
fest that, thus considered, prayer can never be 
done away with as long as we are permitted to 
believe in the existence of a divine being. 

Doubtless this is the theory which appeals 

[125] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

most strongly to noble souls. The man who 
has the root of the matter in him thinks much 
more of what he ought to do and to be than of 
what he would like to get. His longing is to 
establish and maintain close relations with the 
infinite perfection, and to draw help and 
strength and inspiration from that inexhaust- 
ible source. He looks for an answer to prayer, 
not so much in what he receives, as in the di- 
vine influence on his own life. This was what 
Sir Henry Wotton meant when he wrote of 
the man : 

"Who God doth late and early pray 
More of His grace than gifts to lend." 

It was what Tennyson meant when he makes 
King Arthur say : 

"Pray for my soul. More things are wrought 

by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy 

voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 

[126] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

Both for themselves and those who call them 

friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

In other words, prayer is here regarded as 
something to which men are pledged by the 
divinity of their own nature, as the link which 
binds the soul and the world to the Almighty 
God. Than that there can be no higher concep- 
tion. The appeal is thus to what is believed to 
be the deepest human instinct. Men are bid- 
den to pray, not that they may get something 
from God, much less that they may give some- 
thing to Him, but that they may be one with 
Him. It is a step toward that unity which must 
be maintained and strengthened if the moral 
universe is not to be wrecked. It is, of course, 
obvious that this position can never be over- 
thrown unless God Himself is overthrown. 
The man who feels that there is a God above 
him can not be affected by any scientific dis- 
coveries, can not be made to feel that prayer in 
this sense — the highest sense of all — is a mere 
superstitious thing. 

As it seems quite impossible for men — with 
[127] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

comparatively few exceptions, and these of 
doubtful authenticity — to get away from the 
idea of God, it is hard to see how they can rid 
themselves of this longing for communion with 
Him, this craving for those higher things 
which are part of the life of man, and the very 
best part. And this longing and craving are 
prayer. Unless infidelity is true, prayer — of 
this sort at least — is an absolute necessity; is 
something indeed that can hardly be avoided. 
It is almost like the unconscious exercise of a 
faculty. "While I breathe I pray," we sing in 
the hymn, and indeed it is as natural to do one 
as the other, unless the nature has been so per- 
verted as to be unnatural. Thus there is a sound 
basis for the theory of Tennyson, who, by the 
way, was probably more affected in his work 
by the modern scientific spirit than any of his 
contemporaries in poetry. It is true that by 
prayer 

" * * * the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

Men's acts may be, and often are prayers, as 
their thoughts and hopes and aspirations are. 
And a life filled with such acts is a prayer — 

[128] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

and of the noblest kind. This is a subject that 
is wholly outside the domain of science — some- 
thing with which science has, and can have, 
nothing to do. We are in another realm alto- 
gether, the realm of the spirit. So there are no 
scientific arguments that can be advanced 
against the philosophy of Tennyson. He may 
be wrong, but he can not be proved wrong un- 
less God can be proved not to exist. In read- 
ing his beautiful lines we instinctively feel that 
they are deeply true, so true as to be beyond 
the utmost reach of materialistic reasoning. If 
we grant God and man, we must grant prayer, 
for it is through that that the relationship be- 
tween God and man is maintained. A breaking 
of that relationship is as a rule followed by 
moral and spiritual chaos. When the "gold 
chains" part, man is likely to fall below the 
level even of his own nature. And this, as his- 
tory has many times shown, is true of races 
and nations. 

But many a man able to go thus far will still 
refuse to admit the value of direct petitions to 
the Almighty Power except as these have to do 
with the spiritual blessings. Here it seems to 
him the scientific logic does apply and very 
[ 129] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

directly. There is a most interesting discus- 
sion of this phase of the subject in Browning's 
poem, The Family. A man had prayed for 
the recovery of a friend, who seemed fatally 
ill. Objection was raised by another friend on 
the ground that the prayer was an attempt to 
change the will of the Almighty. "I judge," 
said the praying man, "there will be respite, 
for I prayed." The objector continues thus: 

"Sir, let me understand, of charity! 
Yestereve, what was thine admonishment? 
'All-wise, all-good, all-mighty — God is such !' 
How then should man, the all-unworthy, dare 
Propose to set aside a thing ordained ? 
To pray means — substitute man's will for 

God's: 
Two best wills can not be : by consequence, 
What is man bound to but — assent, say I ? 
Rather to rapture of thanksgiving; since 
That which seems worst to man to God is best, 
So, because God ordains it, best to man. 
Yet man — the foolish, weak, and wicked — 

prays ! 
Urges 'My best were better, didst Thou 

know!'" 

The argument is familiar, but the statement 
of it here is very strong. The answer of the 
[ 130] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

poet is contained in a parable, which can only 
be outlined. A woman was poisoned by a ser- 
pent bite. The physician declared that the leg 
must be amputated. The husband with a sigh 
accepted the decision. The eldest son urged 
further consideration and that every effort be 
made to save the limb. The second son de- 
manded that there be no operation. "Save the 
limb/' he said, "thou must and shalt." The 
voice of science spoke through the third son, 
who said : 

"The leech knows all things, we are ignorant ; 
What he proposes, gratefully accept ! 
For me, had I some unguent bound to heal 
Hurts in a twinkling, hardly would I dare 
Essay its virtue and so cross the sage 
By cure his skill pronounces folly. Quick ! 
No waiting longer ! There the patient lies : 
Out then with implements and operate. " 

What we have is reliance on the orderly 
course of nature, and on the expert counsel of 
the wise physician. There was nothing else to 
do, so the argument runs. And yet — was there 
nothing else? The praying man who is sup- 
posed to tell the story characterizes the hus- 
band's attitude as one of "ready acquiescence, 

[131] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

aptitude angelic, understanding swift and sure." 
The first son stands for "a wise humanity, slow 
to conceive, but duteous to adopt.' ' In the sec- 
ond son there is still humanity, but it is "wrong- 
headed/' though "right-hearted/' and "rash but 
kind." The youngest son is "the cackler of the 
brood, who, aping wisdom all beyond his years, 
thinks to discard humanity itself." And the 
conclusion is as follows : 

"No, be a man and nothing more — 
Man who, as man conceiving, hopes and fears, 
And craves and deprecates, and loves, and 

loathes, 
And bids God help him, till death touch his 

eyes 
And show God granted most, denying all." 

It is poetry, of course, but is there not sound 
sense in it? Does not this form of prayer de- 
velop naturally out of that first discussed — is 
it not necessarily involved in it? Men admit 
the value of such prayer as a subjective influ- 
ence, and point to the fact that some of the 
strongest men that the world has known have 
been praying men. And yet prayer could have 
no such effect unless there was faith back of it, 
and belief that the prayer would in some way 
[132] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

be answered. If man's attitude toward God is 
that first discussed, he can hardly help making 
his "requests known unto God." Men natur- 
ally cry to God in their anguish, and the 
deeper the anguish and the more improbable 
the chance of relief, the more passionate is the 
cry, "God help us." We pray even when we 
know that there is, humanly speaking, no hope 
of help. So here, too, there seems to be a prin- 
ciple of human nature involved. In one case 
we are prompted by a desire for communion 
with God. In the other by a sense of depend- 
ence on Him and trust in Him. 

What troubles most men is that prayers do 
not seem to be answered. There is to be sure 
a great chance for juggling here and religious 
teachers do not always resist the temptation. 
But really what do we mean by answer to 
prayer? Surely one who knows anything of 
the world, or has any idea of God's greatness 
and man's littleness, would not be so impiously 
rash as to wish to dictate the answer to his 
prayers. Such a man will almost shrink from 
asking for any specific thing, because he must 
realize that he can not know whether it would 
be good for him or not. There must be trust 
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DAY UNTO DAY 

in the divine beneficence, for without it there 
can be no true prayer. The law of the case is 
well put in an ancient prayer : 

"Let Thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to 
the prayers of Thy humble servants ; and, that 
they may obtain their petitions, make them to 
ask such things as shall please Thee." 

If there is any truth in our religion at all we 
should not wish anything that is not pleasing 
to God, and should realize that what is pleas- 
ing to Him is best for us. Pope speaks of one 
"cursed with every granted prayer." People 
do not think of this, and so they usually pray 
simply for what they want without any thought 
of whether it would be right for them to have 
it — whether what they ask would really be a 
blessing. One should not thus trifle with so 
serious a matter. And to be offended, or to 
lose our faith because our idle requests are not 
granted is surely most foolish. The pagan phi- 
losophers knew better than this, for they placed 
their happiness in realities — virtue, courage, 
integrity, calmness in the face of danger, faith 
in God — and not in mere life, much less in 
wealth, prosperity or earthly happiness. Spir- 
itual blessings are never withheld from a man. 

[134] 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER 

On the contrary, they are often conferred 
through a withholding of the earthly blessings 
which we so earnestly — and often so foolishly 
— desire. We all know of cases of this sort, 
either in our own lives or in the lives of others. 
The true prayer should, as has been said, be 
rather for "grace" than for "gifts." 



[135] 



A NEW CREATOR 

/^NE has only to read an article entitled 
^^ The Untitled Field of Chemistry, writ- 
ten by Arthur D. Little, and printed in Science, 
to realize that there are practically no limits set 
by certain chemists to the possibilities of their 
science. The statements made in this article — 
only a few of which will be considered — will 
greatly surprise any one who has looked on 
chemistry as a mere affair of gases and ele- 
ments, looked on it as men used to do a genera- 
tion ago when the atom was the irreducible 
minimum. Some of the statements will surprise 
even those who have tried to keep pace with 
the developments of the science, and who know 
something of its achievements. Let us begin 
with this : 

"Chemistry concerns itself with the changes 
which matter undergoes in varying relations 
to certain forms of energy and yet we do not 

[136] 



A NEW CREATOR 

know what matter is nor have we any concep- 
tion of the real nature of energy. One has 
only to state in their ultimate terms the prob- 
lems confronting us to bring a realization of 
how far from their solution we still stand. 
They are, for instance, thus summarized by 
Karl Pearson : 'What is it that moves ? Why 
does it move? How does it move?' Where 
yet, I ask you, is their answer to be found in 
chemistry?" 

Plainly, it is not now to be found in chemis- 
try. But the great question is, will it ever be 
found there? Mr. Little evidently believes so. 
At least he thinks it somewhat of a reproach 
that greater progress in this direction has not 
been made. Now he would be a foolish man 
who should seek to oppose any obstacle to the 
progress of science, or try to limit it in any 
way. Rather ought its devotees to be stimu- 
lated to the highest endeavor by the large de- 
mands which the world should make on them. 
If they can explain the mystery of the uni- 
verse there is no one who would not rejoice. 
Nor will it do to make too much of the distinc- 
tion between the spiritual and the physical, for 
many things in the past have been accounted 



DAY UNTO DAY 

for by attributing them to spiritual causes 
which were later found to be wholly within the 
physical realm. The world of ghosts for in- 
stance has faded out of existence. So we 
should begin our inquiry with the admission 
that the scientists must have a free hand. 

But the scientist — and we should not forget 
this — is always in danger of thinking that he 
has explained a thing by naming it. No one, 
for instance, knows much more than was 
known before the days of Newton about the 
force of gravitation. We have found out how 
it acts, but it can hardly be said that we know 
what it is. This is true of most physical forces. 
We might analyze matter, and discover all its 
constituent parts without being much nearer 
than we are now to answering the questions 
propounded by Mr. Little. When we get into 
the domain of energy or force we seem to be 
in the presence of phenomena that we can not 
explain. It is known that bodies move because 
they are acted on by a force or power, either 
external or internal. We may be able to pro- 
duce this energy, as when we transform coal 
into steam. We then know what the force 
comes from and in what it abides, but the force 

[138] 



A NEW CREATOR 

itself still seems to be beyond us. This then 
appears to be the problem which the chemists 
are now trying to answer. It is hard to be- 
lieve that they can ever do it. Nor can the fact 
that the chemists are or may be confident of 
success do much to convince men that there is 
a basis for their hope. If the possibility be ad- 
mitted, there can be no doubt that the puzzle 
of the universe will be solved. For this must 
follow from the successful answering of the 
questions. Mr. Little says : 

"The subject-matter of such speculations lies 
so far outside our present-day chemistry as to 
almost require apology for their presentation, 
but they are well within the subject-matter of 
the chemistry of the future, for, to again quote 
the words of Pearson : 'The goal of science is 
clear; it is nothing short of the complete inter- 
pretation of the universe.' " 

Even limiting the word "universe" to its ma- 
terial manifestations, the task which these men 
have set before themselves is one that seems 
to be beyond finite powers. It may turn out to 
be otherwise. And yet many will feel that after 
science has explained to the utmost there will 
be depths of knowledge which it can not sound. 
[ 139 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

Tennyson had something of this in mind when 
he wrote : 

"Only That which made us, meant us to be 

mightier by and by, 
Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens 

within the human eye, 

Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, 
thro' the human soul ; 

Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless out- 
ward, in the whole.' ' 

This "shadow of Himself," which the poets 
and philosophers and religious teachers have 
always felt, if there is such a thing, is likely 
to elude the most exhaustive inquiry into the 
origins of things. After we have found out — 
if we ever do — what it is "that moves," we 
shall still have to ask where it came from. It 
is not enough to ask "why does it move" or 
"how does it move" — we must also ask who or 
what moves it. Thus we come back again to 
the question of force, and force is something 
that no man ever saw, something that no man 
ever will see with human eye. It does seem, 
therefore, as though the ambitions of the chem- 
ists are rather unreasonable and excessive. 
[140] 



A NEW CREATOR 

Much has been done, and vastly more is yet to 
be done. But it is hard to get it out of the 
mind of men that there is a spiritual side to the 
universe, a spiritual element in it, that lies 
wholly outside the domain of physical science, 
and this after reducing the spiritual to the 
minimum. We may all find ourselves to be 
mistaken. The process that is now going on 
may be merely a continuation of that process 
which has eliminated ghosts and hobgoblins 
and angry gods from the world as causes of 
phenomena. But after everything else has been 
driven out, there will remain the mind of man, 
which is certainly not the product of mere 
chemical reactions. There is no reason why 
investigators should not push their inquiry to 
the extremest limits, no reason why they should 
not attempt what now seems to be impossible. 
For the greater the effort and the higher the 
hope, the more splendid will be the result, even 
if it be less than was looked for. Even if we 
do not reach "the goal of science," which is 
said to be "nothing short of the complete inter- 
pretation of the universe," we may nevertheless 
learn much from the effort to reach that goal. 
What is aimed at is, indeed, a sort of crea- 

[ 141 1 



DAY UNTO DAY 

tion. For in this same article we have the ac- 
count of a great German chemical plant 
employing thousands of chemists, engineers, 
officers and workmen, a plant which "represents 
the highest development which industrial chem- 
istry has reached." And yet we are told, as 
though it were a matter of reproach, that "it 
can not produce an ounce of starch which a 
potato, growing in the ground, fabricates from 
water and carbonic acid gas under the influence 
of sunshine." This great aggregation of ma- 
chinery can, indeed, "produce certain natural 
products in condition so available and pure as 
even to improve upon nature." Then follows 
this: 

"But by what monstrous effort is it accom- 
plished! In the spring the tender grass and 
the delicate unfolding leaves cover the whole 
earth with the green of chlorophyll. There is 
no noise, no smoke, no stench. The grass is 
cool and grateful to the touch, and clean." 

And this is the ideal which it is hoped to ap- 
proximate. In other words, chemistry is re- 
proached, not simply because it can not do what 
nature does, but because it can not do it in the 
same great and easy way. Was there ever such 
[ 142] 



A NEW CREATOR 

an ambition as this ? Is it to be realized ? Did 
the Almighty ever intend that it should be 
realized ? Are we to believe that man can ever 
make a world, with its grass and trees and 
leaves ? Here again we may easily believe that 
we are on the eve of vast discoveries, that we 
are to learn how to use natural forces that are 
not now used at all — but is there to be no 
limit? It is not meant to imply that there 
should be a limit, or that there is anything im- 
pious in the effort to push the conquests of 
science to the furthest possible point. The 
only question is whether or not man is again to 
become as the gods? If nature is to be repro- 
duced in our laboratories, which is manifestly 
the idea at the bottom of all these speculations, 
we shall, indeed, have reached "the complete 
interpretation of the universe." The research 
now being prosecuted is not limited to the ex- 
ternal universe, for the nature of man and the 
operations of his mind are being subjected to 
the same inquiry. 

In the first chapter of Genesis we have this : 
"In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth." Genesis is not held in much rever- 
ence by the scientists, or, indeed, by the pro- 

[143] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

gressive theologians, and, of course, there have 
been many foolish attempts to reconcile it with 
science. But after all, it does not seem pos- 
sible to go very much back of that first great 
utterance — "in the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth." At least we know that 
man did not do it. Will he ever be able to do 
it? That is the problem now before us. We 
have seen how easily and quietly nature works 
through her ordinary processes, and how 
poorly man imitates her. She is at any rate still 
the model and ideal, as much so as in the be- 
ginning. And yet one poet may be quoted as 
authority on this subject by the scientists, and 
strangely enough it is Matthew Arnold. His 
sonnet entitled In Harmony With Nature is 
as follows: 

" Tn harmony with Nature ?' Restless fool, 
Who with such heat dost preach what were to 

thee, 
When true, the last impossibility — 
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool ! 

"Know, man hath all which Nature hath, and 

more, 
And in that more lie all his hopes for good. 

I 144 ] 



A NEW CREATOR 

Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; 
Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore; 

"Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest; 
Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave; 
Man would be mild, and with safe conscience 
blest. 

Man must begin, know this, where Nature 

ends; 
Nature and man can never be fast friends. 
Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave !" 

But even so we may argue that if man is to 
excel nature it must be, not by doing what she 
does as well as or better than she does it, but 
by doing other things which she can not do. If 
we are to begin "where nature ends" it may be 
that our work is not to supplement hers, but 
work of our own, and in quite a different 
sphere. And the more we prove that nature 
is a master workman in world-building, the 
more may we prove that man's work is some- 
thing else. 

But still there is in this sonnet an exaltation 
of man over nature out of which the scientists 
who are seeking at least to equal nature may 
derive no small degree of consolation and en- 

[ 145 ] 



£>AY UNTO DAY 

fcouragement. If we are so much greater thatl 
nature it may be that, if we choose to abandon 
our higher sphere, and enter the lists against 
her, we may be able to beat her. But it still 
remains to inquire what nature is, whether it 
is an ultimate. Suppose that there is a being 
working both in nature and in the soul of man, 
can we hope to excel Him in either field? Is 
not the best we can do to hope to profit by His 
teaching, and to approximate to His excel- 
lence? And if that excellence rises to the 
heights of perfection, are we not forced to be 
somewhat skeptical as to the claims of the 
modern scientists? At least we find ourselves 
in a field that is widely different from that 
which is tilled by the chemists. For we are in 
the domain of motive, and consciousness, and 
conscience, and faith, and have to do with 
things that are utterly unrelated to physical 
science — unless indeed it be established first 
that there is nothing in the universe that is not 
physical. So it is extremely doubtful whether 
even the new chemistry can ever answer the 
questions : "What is it that moves ? Why does 
it move? How does it move?" There is little 
likelihood that it will ever be able, even with 
[146] 



A NEW CREATOR 

the vastest and best equipped laboratories, to 
create trees and grass, or to give "the complete 
interpretation of the universe." We are just 
now passing through a sort of superstition in 
regard to the physical sciences. They have done 
so much that we expect them to do everything, 
even to make men good and virtuous by mak- 
ing them healthy and comfortable. The super- 
stition does little positive harm, but it is a 
superstition none the less. Chemistry undoubt- 
edly has many victories before it. Probably 
more is looked for from it than from any other 
of the sciences. But it is even yet a long way 
from the secret of the universe. 



[147] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

IV TO one can believe in God except in so far 
-L ^ as He is admitted to be a natural being. 
Supernatural as He is in power and wisdom and 
love, He is natural as being a part of the uni- 
verse, as being logically and necessarily related 
to it. The farther we push the argument from 
design and the more we insist that the universe 
implies a Creator, the more inevitably are we 
driven to the conclusion that it is natural to 
believe in God. But if this is so, it must fol- 
low that God Himself is natural in the sense 
that we can not think of either man or nature 
apart from Him. These reflections are sug- 
gested by an extract from the writings of 
George Meredith printed in the weekly of T. P. 
O'Connor. It is as follows : 

"Doctors and parsons are doing a lot of harm 
by increasing the fear of death and making the 
English less manly. No one should consider 
death or think of it as worse than going from 

[148] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

one room into another. The greatest of politi- 
cal writers has said, 'Despise your life, and 
you are master of the lives of others.' Philos- 
ophy would say, 'Conquer the fear of death, 
and you are put into possession of your life/ 
I was a very timid and sensitive boy. I was 
frightened of everything; I could not endure 
to be left alone. But when I came to be eighteen 
I looked round the world (as far as a youth 
of eighteen can look) and determined not to 
be afraid again. Since then I have had no fear 
of death. Every night when I go to bed I 
know I may not rise from it. That is nothing % 
to me. I hope I shall die with a good laugh, 
like the old French woman. The cure came 
wailing to her about salvation and things like 
that, and she told him her best improper story 
and died. The God of nature and human na- 
ture does not dislike humor, you may be sure, 
and would rather hear it in extremity than the 
formless official drone. Let us believe in a 
hearty God — one to love more than to fear." 

It is true that we have conventionalized 

God as we have conventionalized death — 

have made death a horrible thing, and have 

rather shuddered at the thought of God as the 

[ 149 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

author or permitter of death. As we, many 
of us, never think of God except when we are 
in deadly peril, or of death till it knocks at our 
door, it is perhaps not surprising that our state 
of mind should be what it is. But it is, never- 
theless, a wrong, and, as it is believed, an un- 
christian state of mind. If God is, as we are 
taught to think, the author of joy and happi- 
ness, there must be joy and happiness in His 
own nature. Surely it is not wrong to think of 
Him as "a hearty, God." 

No doubt our idea of God as a solemn and 
gloomy ruler — if not, as in the old days, a 
bloodthirsty tyrant — is the natural result of 
our thinking of virtue as a forbidding and 
austere quality, quite unrelated to the natural 
man. This is the view of a great many people, 
and, of course, of all those who seek to curtail 
the innocent pleasures of men, who look on 
pleasure itself as a sort of sin. It may be that 
some are unconscious that they hold any such 
opinions. But they do hold them, nevertheless. 
When we talk of having "a good time" we 
often mean a wicked time, our theory being 
that goodness, and happiness or pleasure stand 
directly opposed to each other. As it is natural 

[150] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

for men to wish to be happy, and as they 
(many of them) regard goodness as opposed 
to happiness, they feel that goodness itself is 
unnatural, and thus they are landed by a per- 
fectly natural process in a position that is 
grossly immoral. Religious people are even 
more responsible than irreligious people for 
the existence of this fallacy. For the feeling 
of the irreligious people is due directly to the 
attitude of many Christians toward life, to 
their attitude toward religion itself. If Chris- 
tianity seems gloomy, morose, weak and un- 
virile, it is because it has been presented to the 
world in a false light. Men are repelled by it, 
not because it makes large demands on them, 
not because it calls them to noble living, but 
because it seems to concern itself with petty 
things, seems somehow to make men less men. 
It has come to such a pass that even the word 
"good" has a sinister significance. When we 
can say nothing else of a man, we say that he 
is good, and every one feels that what should 
be the highest praise is in reality severe criti- 
cism. The world understands this. But it is 
extremely difficult to make Christians under- 
stand it. They know that they do certain things, 

[151] ' 



DAY UNTO DAY 

and do not do certain other things, and think 
that this is all that is necessary. Yet they may 
keep the so-called law from their youth up and 
yet not be really religious at all. But the world 
takes their view of religion as the only one — 
and rejects it. 

The Protestant Reformation, in emphasizing 
conduct — which greatly needed to be empha- 
sized — fell into the mistake of making conduct 
a mere matter of rules and outward restraint. 
Codes of morality were built up which, in 
time, became exceedingly complex and artifi- 
cial. It grew to be almost sinful to indulge the 
natural affections — indeed, everything that was 
natural was thought to be wicked. Even laugh- 
ter was held to be godless. Pleasure, even of 
the most innocent sort, was put under the ban. 
Man's only business in this world was to pre- 
pare himself for life in the next world — and 
that next world was so unlike this one, so ut- 
terly unhuman or non-human, that men felt 
that they must lead unhuman or non-human 
lives here in order to prepare for it. Men 
thought rather of being saved from punishment 
than of being saved from sin, and in order to 
escape the terrible and material hell of the old 

[152] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

theology they felt that no sacrifice of their 
natural instincts — however innocent — was too 
great or dreadful. "My Saviour banished joy," 
they sang — and so, joy was banished from their 
world. Now the worst of it all was that this 
system or philosophy was wholly unnatural 
and artificial. Religion became an unnatural 
thing, as did goodness. The old idea of right- 
eousness as a free, natural and spontaneous 
thing, righteousness as itself the fulness of 
God, was lost, and for it was substituted a sort 
of schedule of conduct, which was often framed 
without any reference whatever to fundamen- 
tal right and wrong. In asserting and vindi- 
cating intellectual freedom — which was itself 
lost later — the ultra Protestantism brought 
men into bondage to those very ordinances that 
were condemned by St. Paul. And to-day we 
are still debating whether men ought to smoke 
or dance or go to the theater, apparently not 
realizing that in all this regulation there is no 
spirit of Christianity, but only that of a dark 
puritanism. "Wherefore," says the apostle, 
"if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments 
of the world, why, as though living in the 
world, are ye subject to ordinances?" 
[iS3l 



DAY UNTO DAY 

Now it would manifestly be most unfair to 
charge all this to Protestantism. And it would 
be quite as unfair to say that this attitude 
toward life has not its basis in Christianity, no 
matter by whom or in what form it is held. 
In his contrast between Hellenism and Hebra- 
ism Matthew Arnold makes it perfectly clear — 
and we needed no apostle of culture to tell us 
this — that there is something in Christianity 
that is at war with the natural man, something 
which is antagonistic to unrestrained worldly 
joy. 

This is, not puritanism, but Christianity. 
And men looking at life from this viewpoint 
could hardly help going to extremes. But there 
is a great truth in Herbert's line, "My Saviour 
banished joy." Life to one nourished in the 
noble school of Hebraism is a very serious and 
solemn thing. Sin is a reality, and man is prone 
to evil, is "born to trouble as the sparks fly 
upward." We may make the picture as dark as 
we please without going much beyond the 
thought of the greatest — and the most happy — 
saints. Nothing is gained by trying to soften 
down our religion into a mere pleasant phil- 
osophy. 

[154] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

But, even so, goodness is natural to man, in 
spite of his sin, not because he has attained 
to it, but because he aspires to it, and desires 
it. Perfection may appear "remote and rising 
away from earth, in the background," but it is 
none the less the goal toward which we strive, 
and we can understand it, know what it is, and 
long for it. There is something in our nature 
that corresponds to it. If man is — as he is — 
weak and sinful, he is nevertheless the child of 
God, endowed with the divine nature, made in 
the image of God. This being true, it would 
seem to follow that the teachers of religion 
should bend all their energies to making the 
good and religious life natural to man, should 
make man see that he can fulfil his own nature 
only by being a good man. This was what 
George Herbert did, and one can not read his 
pious counsel without feeling that it is not only 
highly spiritual, but inspired by plain, old- 
fashioned common sense. He was right when 
he said "My Saviour banished joy" — and yet 
Herbert lived a joyous life. But the joy that 
he knew — and this should be true of every 
Christian man — was the result of living up to 
the very best that was in his own nature. His 

[155] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

constant assumption was, not that men were 
good, but that they wanted to be good, that 
there was in them a capacity for goodness. He 
also taught that there was in man a need for 
and a longing for God — that this, too, was 
natural. God is supposed to say : 

"If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 
May toss him to my breast." 

Thus out of the humanest of all qualities 
was forged a chain that might bind the soul to 
God. At any rate the relationship was recog- 
nized, and it was felt to be of the closest sort. 
Possibly a little of this kind of preaching would 
be found helpful to-day. It is certain that we 
need something to bridge the gap that now 
yawns between religion and life, something 
to make men realize that they are at their best 
only when they are most truly and sincerely re- 
ligious. 

Finally, as bearing on the theory that re- 
ligion is a gloomy and weak thing, is the 
thought of battle and conquest. This flows 
from that other thought of sin. So out of what 
would otherwise be the very depths of gloom 
issues the highest sort of joy, the joy of self- 

[156] 



MEREDITH'S IDEA OF GOD 

conquest. If sin is the dreadful thing we are 
taught to think it, there can be nothing but joy 
in the determination to vanquish it, joy indeed 
in the very war against it, the joy of the strug- 
gle. And this, too, is wholly natural, as is also 
the passion for victory. Men are so consti- 
tuted that they take pleasure in overcoming 
their enemies, and Christianity sets before us 
an enemy that we ought to wish to overcome. 
There is in it a direct appeal to the fighting in- 
stinct. St. Paul puts the matter thus : 

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not 
war after the flfesh: (for the weapons of our 
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
God to the pulling down of strongholds :) cast- 
ing down imaginations, and every high thing 
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of 
God, and bringing into captivity every thought 
to the obedience of Christ." 

And again we have this battle-cry from the 
same militant apostle : 

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord 
and in the power of His might. Put on the 
whole armor of God, that ye may be able to 
stand against the wiles of the devil. For we 
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 

[157] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual 
wickedness in high places." 

If there were no sin in the world, and no 
temptation, there would be no possibility of 
this deep Christian joy, and no opportunity for 
the exercise of these high and strong qualities. 
Though we may not pray that we may "con- 
tinue in sin that grace may abound," we may 
be thankful that we live in a world in which 
all our highest powers are called into play, and 
know something of a religion that makes such 
imperious demands of the best that is in us. 
Those who think of Christianity as something 
weak, gloomy, petty, artificial and unnatural, 
simply do not know what it is. They have mis- 
taken something else — some man-made system 
— for it. 



[158] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 



THERE is a growing disposition to attrib- 
ute sin and weakness to everything but 
their right cause — which is almost invariably an 
enfeebled will. And the will is feeble because its 
possessor has utterly failed to train and dis- 
cipline it. The man who excuses himself for 
his lapses on the ground that he has a weak 
will is, in nine cases out of ten, himself to 
blame therefor. He has failed to discipline 
himself, has trifled and coquetted with sin and 
temptation, has taken the easy way, and has 
neglected what the theologians call the means 
of grace. Beginning with the theory that he 
was in some way an exception to all ordinary 
rules, and holding to the idea that he was en- 
titled to everything while he owed nothing to 
society, it is not surprising that he should soon 
cease to have any sense of responsibility. The 
truth is that in thinking of ourselves and of 
others we have got into a pagan frame of mind, 

[159] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

although the great pagans were men of exalted 
and strict virtue. People who never set their 
foot inside of the church, never study the Bi- 
ble, never read the philosophers, and never 
make the slightest pretense of denying them- 
selves anything, find it hard to see how any one 
can be to blame for his outrageous conduct. 
It is always the result of temperament, environ- 
ment, heredity — of everything, in short, except 
the man's own sinful nature. Of course, some 
people are diseased morally as others are dis- 
eased physically. For such there should be the 
utmost pity. Whatever can be done to help 
them ought to be done. They are not to be 
condemned by human judgment. Perhaps they 
did the best they could. For them and for all 
others there must be infinite charity. But for 
the normal man, who is the average man, and 
who represents the great majority of the race, 
no such pitiful plea can be made. He must be 
judged by his life. If he has failed to improve 
his opportunities he alone is to blame. And in 
considering this question we must deal with or- 
dinary people, with society as a whole. Con- 
sidering the matter thus, it ought not to be diffi- 
cult to see the danger involved in the free and 
[160] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 

easy theory of life that is now so popular. Men 
can be good and honest and true, no matter 
what their temperament, heredity, or environ- 
ment. 

Of course, if they will not submit to dis- 
cipline, if they will not use the means provided 
for the development of their spiritual natures, 
they can not expect to be able to meet the foe 
with any hope of triumph. If they live easy, 
selfish, non-religious lives; if they are content 
solely with the joys of this world; if they put 
from them everything that is unpleasant or 
hard, they ought not to be surprised if they fail 
when the test comes. You are not sorry for 
the half-back who collapses and loses the game 
for his team because he has failed to train — 
failed to keep himself in condition. You do not 
attribute his breakdown to temperament or en- 
vironment or heredity, but to his unwillingness 
to endure hardship. It is precisely so in the 
battle of life. We may — indeed, we must — be 
sympathetic toward the poor, broken human 
beings, even if they have failed through their 
own fault. But to justify them, to say that they 
might not have won even had they lived the 
right sort of life, and above all to base any so- 
[161] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

cial theory on their failures — this is the wild- 
est sort of folly. 

Those who have studied this question of sin 
in even a half -scientific way know perfectly 
well that men are neither good nor bad all at 
once. It was one of the pagans — possibly the 
most cynical of them — who said that "no man 
ever became extremely wicked all at once." 
Men and women coddle sin, trifle and play with 
temptation, accustom themselves to the thought 
of wickedness, imagine what would happen to 
them should they yield, all the while refusing 
to put themselves in contact with the thoughts 
of the great masters — and yet they cry out for 
pity when they reach the goal which they must 
have known they would reach. As Shakespeare 
said long ago, they tread "the primrose path 
of dalliance." To paraphrase another's thought, 
they deck with garlands the downward path 
and then murmur because they reach the fatal 
goal. The process of deterioration is gradual 
in almost all cases. Men not only fail to resist, 
but they deliberately cooperate with the forces 
of evil. It is necessary to put the matter strong- 
ly because people nowadays are transferring 
[ 162 ] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 

their sympathies from the sinner to the sin. 
How could he have helped doing this or that 
thing, we ask ourselves, and before we know 
it we are forced to the conclusion that the thing 
the man could not help doing is in itself right, 
or at least not sinful and base. Human respon- 
sibility is the greatest thing in the world. With- 
out it society would be dissolved. But for it 
morality would cease to exist. A good deal too 
much is made of so-called temperament. It is 
easier for some to do right than it is for others, 
and vastly harder for some than for others to 
resist temptation. But there is in all at least 
the capacity for struggle and effort. We need 
not surrender the citadel at the first assault, 
need not assume that we are under no obliga- 
tion to defend it. We can not play the traitor 
to our God, to the moral law, to religion and the 
church, or to society, and hope to be excused 
as geniuses who are in some way above the law. 
The church has always recognized that "we 
have no power of ourselves to help ourselves." 
It is for that reason that she bids us ask God 
to "keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and 
inwardly in our souls ; that we may be defended 

[163] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

from all adversities which may happen to the 
body, and from all evil thoughts which may as- 
sault and hurt the soul." 

We need to take the heroic view of life, need 
to think of it as a warfare in which our adver- 
saries are innumerable temptations. What 
should we think of a soldier who, no matter 
how cowardly he was by nature and "temper- 
ament," should fail to stand by the colors in 
time of war ? Such a man would be court-mar- 
tialed and shot. All about us are humble and 
obscure men, quite guiltless of having any phi- 
losophy of life, who do their work from day to 
day with the most conscientious faithfulness, 
who make sacrifices of which the world never 
hears, and who are always true to duty. It is 
of these that we should learn. Temptations are 
a part of life. As the wrestler with whom 
we strive strengthens and exercises us, so do 
temptations exercise and strengthen the spiri- 
tual nature. Without them there could, as far 
as we now see, be no such thing as character. 
People who have been misled by their sympa- 
thies, or by their supposed broadness and toler- 
ation, should read the great poets, and the writ- 
ers who describe noble deeds rather than 

[164] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 

thoughts and speculations. Much good can be 
got out of such a piece of literature as Augus- 
tine Birrell's essay on Truth-Hunting. Charles 
Lamb was weak in many ways, and he had 
more than his due share of temperament, but 
he asked for no charity. "O my friend," he 
wrote to Coleridge, "cultivate the filial feel- 
ings! and let no man think himself released 
from the kind charities of relationship; these 
shall give him peace at the last ; these are the 
best foundation for every species of benevo- 
lence." Instead of thinking of his own "devel- 
opment" he "played cribbage every night with 
his imbecile father." 

And this suggests a word about this theory 
of development which is so often advanced in 
behalf of those who are recreant to the duties 
that lie all about them. No man can attain any 
development worthy of the name by playing 
traitor to his duties. The best development is 
that of character, of the spiritual nature, and it 
comes directly from sacrifice. It is a curious 
thing, too, that those who run away from hus- 
band or wife to seek it, who desert their chil- 
dren, and affront society, almost invariably de- 
generate along the very lines on which they 

[165] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

hope to advance. Human nature is one, and 
this being so, the normal man can not advance 
intellectually when he deteriorates morally. 
Even if he could, the prize would be too dearly 
bought. The trouble with most of us who 
take this easy view of life is that we have failed 
to educate ourselves — or are the victims of a 
false education. It is the first duty of men 
and women to be clean and brave and true and 
self-sacrificing and subject to their own higher 
nature. They are not, except in the rarest 
cases, under any compulsion to lie or steal or to 
be impure. Perverts and degenerates are, as 
insane people, under another law. But the 
thought is not of these. It is of the overwhelm- 
ing preponderance of normal people, and not 
of the rebels against society. And the argu- 
ment is that we can not construct a social the- 
ory based on the abnormal types. 

In conclusion, a word must be said of temp- 
tation as a moral force. When we look into 
our own hearts we know that we are all, in the 
Christian sense, weak creatures, — "miserable 
sinners," as the Prayer Book puts it. What we 
need, therefore, is strength, and this can be got 
by a proper use of temptation. The great writ- 
[166] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 

ers, especially the great poets, have always held 
this theory. It is beyond question true. There 
are several passages in Browning in which this 
is made very clear. There is no temptation 
stronger than that toward unbelief. Probably 
it is the master temptation of our time. Yet the 
poet shows how it is at bottom faith itself. 
For he says, speaking for the bishop : 

"With me, faith means perpetual unbelief 
Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot 
Who stands calm just because he feels it 
writhe. 



No, when the fight begins within himself, 

A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his 

head, 
Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — 
He's left, himself, i' the middle : the soul wakes 
And grows." 

The same great poet makes the Pope judge 
the young priest thus : 

"Was the trial sore ? 
Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time ! 
Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot, 

[167] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

And so be pedestalled in triumph ? Pray 
'Lead us into no such temptations, Lord !' 
Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, 
Lead such temptations by the head and hair, 
Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, 
That so he may do battle and have praise I" 

And finally we have this from the same mil- 
itant poet : 

"And so I live, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare ; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man. 
Not left in God's contempt apart, 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart.' ' 

So speak the great souls of literature. And 
the Bible gives us the whole story of God's 
dealing with mankind on precisely this basis. 
We need to get something of this heroism, of 
this tonic into our blood. The old doctrine of 
perfection through suffering is as true to-day 
as it ever was, and is more needed to-day than 
perhaps ever before. We may, nay should be 
kind and tolerant and gentle and sympathetic 
and charitable, but we can not afford to put evil 
[168] 



THE GOSPEL OF SHIRKING 

for good and good for evil, or light for dark- 
ness and darkness for light. The moral dis- 
tinctions must be insisted on. And instead of 
trying to comfort and console the weak by tell- 
ing them that they are the victims of tempera- 
ment or environment or heredity, we should 
strive to get some strength into them, try to 
nerve them for the struggle, to make them 
ashamed of themselves, and to bring them into 
direct relations to Almighty God, who is the 
source of all spiritual strength. The world 
can not be saved by any such flabby gospel as 
that which is now so popular. 



[169] 



THE CANDOR OF THE NEW 

TESTAMENT 

IN an extremely interesting discussion of this 
subject, the Spectator advances a theory that 
is capable of a wide application. Every one 
knows that the writers of the Gospels and 
Epistles told the truth exactly as they under- 
stood it, no matter how seriously it reflected on 
them and their cause. Their weakness and 
cowardice, their lack of faith, their dullness 
and blindness, their petty quarrels with one 
another — all these are given to the world with 
perfect frankness. When their Master spoke 
to them of high and holy things, they admit 
that they took what He said in the natural 
and materialistic sense, as when He spoke of 
having meat that they knew not of — His meat 
being to do the will of God. Again, when He 
told them that they must eat His flesh and 
drink His blood, they asked how He could 
give them His flesh to eat. Even when He 
told them that "it is the Spirit that quickeneth, ,, 



CANDOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

and that "the flesh profiteth nothing/ 5 they still 
failed to enter into His thought. It may be 
said in passing that many Christians, after all 
the centuries that have passed, still adhere to 
the old materialistic conception held by the dis- 
ciples before they received the fuller revelation. 
But the point is that here, as in everything else, 
the evangelists freely put themselves in the 
wrong, and do not hesitate to show themselves 
to the worst advantage. When we think how 
prone men are to conceal such things in them- 
selves, how often the participators in great 
events strive to glorify themselves, this uncom- 
promising truth on the part of the New Testa- 
ment writers seems all the more remarkable. It 
will not do to explain the phenomenon by say- 
ing that these men were inspired. That is true, 
but they were not controlled. Had they been, 
there would have been no inconsistencies in the 
record. Even the slightest mistake in regard to 
the most trivial thing is enough to overthrow 
such a theory of inspiration. Indeed, these very 
inconsistencies have been used by Christian 
apologists to prove, not the exactness of the 
record, but the utter honesty of the men who 
wrote the record. 

[ 171 1 



DAY UNTO DAY 

So these men told the truth about themselves 
and their brethren, not because they were com- 
pelled to do so, but because it never occurred to 
them to do anything else. Their object was to 
give the facts as they saw and understood them, 
and in doing that they spared neither them- 
selves nor their cause. "Some of the incidents 
recorded by the evangelist would," the writer 
of the article under discussion says, "have 
ruined any cause but Christianity.' 5 The case 
of Judas is specially referred to. This man 
was chosen by One claiming to be divine, and 
yet how great, humanly speaking, was the 
error! The ordinary historian might easily 
have thought that to record the facts concern- 
ing Judas would be to discredit the claims 
which the Master made for Himself, and 
which were to be made for Him. "Have not 
I," said Christ, "chosen you twelve, and one 
of you is a devil?" The test is crucial, yet it is 
triumphantly met. For here is an incident that 
reflects, not solely on the apostolic band, but on 
the cause, and — it might have been thought — 
on the Master Himself. The candor in this 
case rises to the point of sublimity. It is the 



CANDOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

product of an unshakable faith in Christ and 
His gospel. The Spectator puts it thus : 

"Facts were the stuff of which this revelation 
had been formed, therefore, every relevant 
fact must be material for its upbuilding. It 
was held inconceivable that the truth about 
Jesus could be antagonistic to Christianity. 
The candor of the New Testament was at once 
the proof and the product of this faith in the 
minds of the men who wrote it. * * * The 
writers of the New Testament found it impos- 
sible to imagine that any fact about Jesus could 
be antagonistic to Christianity. 5 ' 

Such is the theory of which mention has been 
made, and it is a true theory. So far from a be- 
lief tending to falsify historical records it oper- 
ates to exclude error. Men who are sure of 
themselves and their doctrine do not feel that 
it is necessary to be always protecting it, al- 
ways setting up little defenses about it. On the 
contrary, being sure of themselves and of their 
cause, they write freely and naturally — almost 
with carelessness. If Christ and His gospel 
were divine, no facts could by any possibility 
be brought to light which would discredit them. 
[173] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

This feeling was undoubtedly controlling in the 
minds of these men. If Christ was the Truth, 
as they believed, no truth could conflict with 
Him. 

But these writers were illumined, guided and 
inspired to such an extent that their characters 
were molded by the divine influence. They 
were not saved from inaccuracies, but they 
were saved from dishonesty, and from any 
desire or purpose to deceive. What in- 
spired them was that very faith which filled 
the believing mind which has been spoken of. 
They were simple, natural, utterly sincere, and 
sensitively responsive to the divine influence. 
The gospel which they preached to others had 
first made them what they were. Unless they 
had been thus educated they would never have 
accepted or acted on the theory that no "fact 
about Jesus could be antagonistic to Christian- 
ity.' ' On the contrary, they would have shown 
the same timorousness, the same desire to cover 
up on the one hand and to embellish on the 
other, which disfigure so much of the later 
Christian literature, and so much of our his- 
torical writing generally. Their candor grew 
out of their faith, and their faith was both a 

[174] 



CANDOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

revelation and an inspiration to them. Father 
Waggett, in his book entitled The Scientific 
Temper in Religion, has much to say of the 
believing mind as a requisite to faith, and he, 
too, insists that, so far from leading men to 
take biased views, it is the only thing that 
enables them to appropriate the truth — to make 
it real and vital. It was certainly so with the 
New Testament writers. Sure of themselves, 
sure of their Master, and sure of their mes- 
sage, they naturally threw themselves on the 
absolute truth, serene in their confidence that 
no truth could conflict with the Truth to whose 
service they were solemnly pledged. So it is 
that these writings have stood every test to 
which they have been subjected. 

All this has a very wide and general applica- 
tion. For one thing, it is clear that the ultra- 
orthodox are what they are, not because they 
have more faith, but because they have less 
faith than others. They are always in a state 
of alarm. Now it is science that terrifies them, 
now rationalism and now the higher criticism. 
Always the citadel seems just on the point of 
being taken. They would pose as defenders 
of a faith which they do not think can stand 
[ i7S I 



DAY UNTO DAY 

of itself or make its own way. They hedge 
themselves and their churches about with defi- 
nitions, harden the faith into a system, and 
struggle, valiantly for things which might, 
every one of them, be given up without in any 
way weakening the religion which they profess. 
Their idea is that many facts "about Jesus 
could be antagonistic to Christianity." And 
they hold that it is for them to say what those 
facts are. So, too, such apologists seem quite 
unwilling to trust themselves to the great and 
free movement of natural forces, to the orderly 
processes of the universe of God. Christ 
trusted to them, and so did those who wrote 
about Him. Their power was the power of 
faith. It is a power of which, unfortunately, 
we have a very imperfect realization. If we 
had the faith that the apostles had we should 
know that God can not be thwarted, that there 
is nothing in the world that can injure or im- 
pede His revelation, and that every new truth 
that is revealed— no matter how "dangerous" 
it may seem to be — can only have the effect of 
still further commending that revelation to the 
world. But few men are able to enter into this 
larger conception. Truth is classified as Chris- 

[i 7 6] 



CANDOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

tian and non-Christian, whereas all truth — if 
it be truth at all — is Christian truth. 

To proceed a step further. The application 
of the theory held by the New Testament 
writers to the conduct of life would result in 
making men more honest and natural, much 
more courageous, and vastly more trustful in 
the divine purposes. Only those are free whom 
the truth makes, free. And only those who are 
free are able to live lives honestly and bravely. 
The unwillingness to work and cooperate with 
the great forces in the midst of which we move 
is a sort of survival from the savage state, that 
state in which men were in constant terror. 
They were the victims of this terror because of 
their ignorance of the truth. The more truth 
there was in their lives the less of terror there 
was. When we realize that goodness can not 
be defeated, that God is the ruler of His uni- 
verse, and that a knowledge of His laws is 
the best equipment we can have, we shall not 
be greatly disturbed by anything that may hap- 
pen. The more light there is the more safely 
we shall walk. The greater our faith the 
greater will be our freedom, and the greater 
our freedom the greater will be our faith. So 



DAY UNTO DAY 

it may be that there is a philosophy of life as 
well as one of belief in the theory which has 
prompted these remarks. Surely this should 
be so, as belief and conduct are intimately re- 
lated. In life and belief both we can prove our 
faith in God by our courage and freedom in 
dealing with the great subject of truth. 

Finally, there is in it all a lesson for the 
writers of so-called profane history, for 
all writers who deal with great causes. In 
much of the work of these men we see the very 
defects which are so significantly absent from 
the New Testament record. The historian 
with a pet theory or a pet hero always seems to 
feel that he must suppress or distort everything 
that appears to reflect on the one or to conflict 
with the other. He does not realize that when 
he does this, he weakens the theory and dis- 
credits the hero. Yet such is always the case. 
So, too, the man that essays to defend a great 
cause becomes so exclusively an advocate as to 
create the impression that the cause could not 
make headway, could not even survive except 
as it is protected by him even from friendly 
investigation and criticism. So we have our 
literature of adulation and glorification, and 

[178] 



CANDOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the result invariably is that the reader whose 
opinion is worth anything is almost certain to 
conclude that the man or the cause thus cham- 
pioned is less worthy than is actually the case. 
In making the discount for the personal equa- 
tion we make too large a discount, and so are 
guilty of injustice. But for that injustice the 
falsifying advocate — though the falsification 
may be unconscious — is wholly responsible. 
Here, again, if the writer really believed in his 
hero he would allow the world to see him as he 
actually was. If he were sure of the righteous- 
ness of his cause he would tell the exact truth 
about it. But in both cases he shrinks from 
the truth because he is far from being sure of 
his subject. There is in his mind a doubt and 
an uncertainty which he does not admit even 
to himself, of which, indeed, he may be quite 
unconscious. But it is there, and it vitiates all 
his work. Many a great character of history 
has suffered profoundly from the use of this 
historical method. For the facts always come 
out sooner or later. And even while they are 
hidden there is still always the suspicion that 
things may not be as represented. The con- 
fident man is, therefore, the candid man. The 
[ 179 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

writer whom we trust is he whose whole work 
is permeated with sincerity — is true in its sub- 
stance. As things are what they are, and will 
be what they will be, a great writer once asked 
why men should be willing to be deceived. 
When it is a question about being deceived con- 
cerning the greatest and most precious things 
of life there ought to be no doubt about the 
answer. The world has not been deceived by 
the writers of the New Testament. They 
strove to give us that "utter truth" which "the 
careless angels know." There was in their 
minds no other thought — there could be none 
in the minds of men who so loved their Master, 
and who so trusted in Him and His great cause. 
To have treated either on any other basis than 
that of truth would have been to discredit and 
insult them. 



[180] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

PEOPLE are often asked whether they be- 
lieve a certain thing or not, the assumption 
being that they can not or ought not to believe 
it because it is distasteful to the questioner. Of 
course, the proper answer to such a question is 
that the thing to be considered is not whether 
the statement meets one's approval, but wheth- 
er it is true. If it is true, it must be believed, 
no matter how much distress may be caused by 
the acceptance of the doctrine or teaching. 
Now there is a principle lying back of all this 
which may well be pressed. It is that every 
proposition must stand on its own merits, that 
it is entitled to a trial at the hands of men who 
are willing to put from them all preconceived 
opinions, and to accept whatever is proved to 
them, no matter at what pain to themselves. A 
half -century ago Doctor Temple, once head 
master of Rugby, and later Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, said, in Essavs and Reviews: 
fi8i ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

"He is guilty of high treason against the 
faith who fears the result of any investigation, 
whether philosophical or scientific or histor- 
ical. And, therefore, nothing should be more 
welcome than the extension of knowledge of 
any and every kind; for every increase in our 
accumulations of knowledge throws fresh light 
upon these, the real problems of our day. 
* * * Not only in the understanding of re- 
ligious truth, but in all exercise of the intellec- 
tual powers, we have no right to stop short of 
any limit but that which nature — that is, the 
decree of the Creator — has imposed on us." 

Though we have made much progress, we 
have not yet lifted ourselves to the level of 
that noble utterance. We still ask whether a 
certain discovery consists with what we have 
been taught to believe is true, whether it fits 
in with our own opinions, and almost never 
whether it is true. Yet if it is true, the ques- 
tion is closed. If it is not true, the statement 
must be rejected for that reason, and not be- 
cause it is displeasing to us. 

It may be that we are on the eve of a struggle 
between what is supposed to be religious truth 
and social science, just as men of the preceding 

[ 182 ] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

generation had to face the struggle between re- 
ligious truth and physical science. If that is so 
it is hardly likely that we shall meet the issue 
any more honestly or fearlessly than our fath- 
ers did. But we have at least one great ad- 
vantage, and that lies in the help that we have 
had from the students of religion, of the Bible, 
and from the so-called higher critics. We are 
not tied to any such narrow views as those 
which were entertained by our fathers. And 
yet it will be well for us to inform ourselves, 
that we may be prepared for any possible crisis 
that lies ahead of us. And we can not do better 
than begin with Doctor Temple's words : "Not 
only in the understanding of religious truth," 
he says, "but in all exercise of the intellec- 
tual powers, we have no right to stop short of 
any limit but that which nature — that is the 
decree of the Creator — has imposed." In other 
words, the mind is as divine as the soul or the 
spiritual nature is. The appeal of Almighty 
God is very largely to the mind, as when He 
bids us repent, repentance being simply a 
change of mind. Our minds are from God, 
and it was designed that we should use them 
freely. If anything appears to us, after the 

[ 183 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

best investigation we are able to make, to be 
true, we are bound to accept it no matter what 
else it may seem to make false. We can not 
make this application too broadly, for it covers 
all the truth with which we are called on to 
deal. Truth can not exist in the world — at 
least it can have no influence — except in so far 
as there are men whose minds are open to it, 
men who are willing to accept it no matter from 
where it comes, no matter what revolutions it 
may seem to make in their way of thinking. 
If any truth is from God, all truth is from 
Him. If the new truth overthrows the old 
truth that we thought came from Him, that 
only proves that it did not come from Him, or 
that it had been distorted by men unable to ap- 
propriate it in its purity. 

Let us try to prove the case by contraries, 
and, to that end, take a very simple example. 
When we see in our favorite paper an expres- 
sion of opinion that does not please us, of an 
opinion that is not ours, we at once conclude 
that the paper is wrong — possibly that it is cor- 
rupt or controlled — and never stop to ask our- 
selves whether we may not ourselves be in the 
wrong. We want, not the truth, but what the 

[i8 4 ] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

prophet of old called "smooth things." Our 
standard is set up as infallible, and we try 
everything by that, and not by the standard of 
the absolute truth. We think we are offended 
by the falseness of the statement, when, as a 
matter of fact, we are offended only by its di- 
vergence from our own opinions. And the de- 
mand is, not that the paper should tell the truth, 
but that it should say only what pleases us. 
We do not inquire whether the views have been 
well considered or not, do not reflect that other 
people may approve what we condemn, but we 
array ourselves against perhaps millions of 
people who are as convinced of the rightful- 
ness of their opinions as we are of the rightful- 
ness of ours. All this is very human, but it is 
also very weak. There are all sorts of tests 
which we impose, none of which has any nec- 
essary connection with the truth. Political 
economy must consist with the platform of our 
party. Religious teaching must conform to the 
creed of our church. Even in judging a book 
we ask, not so much whether it is a sound piece 
of literature, as whether it pleases us. It is un- 
der such limitations as these that the thought 
of the world is mostly done, that truth is, as a 

1 185 1 



DAY UNTO DAY 

rule, sought for. And these limitations and 
restrictions are insisted on even by men of 
character and intelligence, who are, apparently, 
unable to see that they are dishonoring truth, 
discrediting scholarship and putting a premium 
on cowardice, dishonesty and indolence. The 
result is that orthodoxy, which means simply 
right teaching, has come to represent prejudice 
and preconceived opinion. If this is to be our 
frame of mind, we shall have a distressing time 
when the crisis, to which many are looking for- 
ward, actually arrives. 

Two considerations in particular suggest 
themselves. The first is that any such objec- 
tions as these to new knowledge are utterly 
futile. They have never accomplished any- 
thing. The revelations of science have not 
been stayed. When these have been proved to 
be false they have failed of acceptance, but 
never otherwise. They have been overthrown, 
not because they conflicted with religion, not 
because men were unwilling to receive them, 
but because science has itself shown their false- 
ness. In other words, the old test of truth was 
applied to them. Failing to stand that, the new 
teaching has been discarded. We used to be 
[186] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

told that geology conflicted with the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, as it did. But we have learned 
that the geologists were right, and so we have 
modified our views as to the first chapter of 
Genesis. It was precisely so with the doctrine 
of evolution. That has suffered some reverses 
of late, and we see that it must, though broadly 
true, be modified in some particulars. But this 
is not the spirit in which it was met by the 
churches. Many of us can remember the bit- 
terness with which it was assailed. Men who 
should have known better perverted Darwin- 
ism in order to make a point against it. It was 
the same temper as that with which we are fa- 
miliar. The bitterness was the result, not of 
the belief of men that the new learning was 
false — for as to that they could know little or 
nothing — but of their shocked and angered 
feelings. Reference was solely to the personal 
standard. As has been said, nothing whatever 
was accomplished. As much of the new doc- 
trine as was true survived. What was con- 
sidered not to be absolutely proved was sub- 
jected to further investigation. No influence, 
political or spiritual, no agency, whether state 
or church, can stop the march of truth. So, as 

[187] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

has been said, the attempt to do so is futile 
— has many times been proved to be so. The 
church that tries to stop it is, as Archbishop 
Temple says, itself "guilty of high treason 
against the faith." 

The other consideration to which reference 
has been made is that the method is not only 
futile but not in accordance with the divine 
will. We sometimes say that revelation is 
completed, and this may be admitted in spirit- 
ual affairs. Though John Robinson, of Ley- 
den, was not far wrong when he said that new 
light is yet to break forth from Holy Scrip- 
ture. There may have been no new revelation 
in the spiritual realm, but men certainly have 
come through some process to a clearer and 
more comprehensive knowledge of the truth. 
The truth was in the Bible and in the church, 
but men's minds have been broadened, and in- 
vestigations have thrown much light on the 
problems that used so greatly to vex us. But 
however all this may be, there is certainly a 
revelation in science and history that is going 
on continuously. And this revelation is as 
much from God as is that which is contained in 
the Bible. Here again Doctor Temple is a safe 
[188] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

guide. After reminding us that "since the 
days of the apostles, no further revelation has 
been granted," he says : 

"The mature mind of our race is "beginning to 
modify and soften the hardness and severity of 
the principles which its early manhood had ele- 
vated into immutable statements of truth. Men 
are beginning to take a wider view than they 
did. Physical science, researches into history, 
a more thorough knowledge of the world they 
inhabit, have enlarged our philosophy beyond 
the limits which bounded that of the church of 
the Fathers; and all these have an influence, 
whether we will or no, on our determinations of 
religious truth. There are found to be more 
things in heaven and earth than were dreamt 
of in the patristic theology. God's creation is 
a new book, to be read by the side of His rev- 
elation, and to be interpreted as coming from 
Him." 

It is not only a new book, but it is a new 
revelation, as everything coming from God 
must be. If it be said that men got the truth 
about nature and society for themselves, while 
the truth about their own souls and about God 
was revealed directly, the answer is that even 

[i8 9 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

in the latter case men had to work and toil for 
the truth, and that it was necessary to use 
the mind to which the revealed truth was ad- 
dressed. So there has been a progressive reve- 
lation even in spiritual things. 

We must assume that it is as much in ac- 
cordance with the divine will that we should 
know about science and history and social de- 
velopment as that we should know what are 
felt to be the more distinctly religious truths. 
Man was made, under God, the master of the 
earth. Subject to finite limitations, it is none 
the less his divinely appointed mission to con- 
quer his inheritance. For countless ages he 
has been engaged in that sublime work. Al- 
ways there have been those who would hinder 
the forward march, who feared that the pace 
was too swift, and who insisted that it was im- 
pious to endeavor to learn too much. But still 
the quest for truth has gone on. The battle 
has been hard, the march painful, and the prog- 
ress slow. But all were ordained by God and 
all have been blessed by Him. Beginning with 
nothing except his body and the spark of a 
soul, man has done — what he has done. And 
through all the ages he has coveted and striven 
[190] 



THE TEST OF TRUTH 

for the truth, and for the truth about God's 
creation, which surely was a fair subject for 
investigation. There could be no more sublime 
study except that of the spiritual relations be- 
tween God and man. Every great genius who 
has flashed a discovery or a new truth on the 
world has been the channel for the transmis- 
sion of a divine revelation. We need to re- 
member that all truth comes from God, and 
that the only question is whether it is really true 
or not. If it is, we must accept it. And in 
any event we must give the widest freedom to 
men engaged in the search for truth, holding 
them responsible only for an honest and hum- 
ble use of their powers and faculties. It does 
not matter whether we are offended or not, but 
it does matter whether we are or are not will- 
ing to be enlightened, whether we open or 
close our minds to the truth. If there is any 
truth in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the 
guide into all truth, if we really believe that 
God is now, as of old, working through the 
minds of men, we surely have no reason to be 
affrighted. 



[ 191 1 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 



THESE are preeminently the days of the 
new theology, days in which men are — us- 
ually with reverence — trying to explain the old 
truths to themselves and to commend them to 
a world that undoubtedly thinks in different 
terms from those used by men hundreds of 
years ago. All this indicates that there is a 
greater rather than a less interest in religion — 
that there are men who, though unable to ac- 
cept the old faith in the old form, are neverthe- 
less unwilling to let it go. So they are almost 
driven to a restatement of it. Back of it all 
there is this undoubted sincerity. Men ques- 
tion, not because they wish to deny, but because 
they long to find a foundation on which they 
may securely rest. What they want is some- 
thing they can hold to, something of which 
they can feel sure. But while crediting the 
new theologians with perfect sincerity, and ac- 
knowledging the great service that many of 
[ 192] 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 

them have rendered, there are nevertheless 
certain reservations that must be made, certain 
cautions that ought to be suggested. No one, 
for instance, can read the treatises of some of 
them without feeling that their difficulty is not 
with Christianity, its Founder, its miracles, or 
its historic creeds, but with revealed and super- 
natural religion of any kind. The conception 
of God — the mightiest of all conceptions — 
troubles them quite as much as the doctrine of 
the deity of Jesus Christ. And in truth it is 
quite as hard to realize. In reading what they 
say of God, one can not but feel that some of 
them have rationalized so much as to make 
even God Himself impossible. So it is that our 
interpreters who try so hard to make Christian- 
ity reasonable do not help us much in the matter 
of religion in the broad sense. Nor do they 
realize that their trouble comes not from their 
inability to understand certain statements about 
God, but from their inability to understand, 
comprehend, or in any sense to realize any God 
at all. Yet this is the impression which much 
of their reasoning conveys to unprejudiced 
minds. 

Nor can one fail to note that when Christian 
[193] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

men engage in this work of recasting our the- 
ology, they very often forget two things which 
they, as Christians, are bound to remember. 
One of those things is the fact of revelation. 
If a man is a Christian at all he must accept 
that. Yet how often do our new theologians 
seem to leave it altogether out of account ! They 
discuss the very fundamentals of the faith in 
precisely the same spirit as that shown by those 
who believe in no revelation at all. Impatient 
of any authority, they seem to forget that there 
is — as there must be for them if they are Chris- 
tians — such a thing as divine authority, that 
God has spoken to men and that the very docu- 
ments which they use are, according to their 
own theory, revealed by God. No point is 
made here on biblical criticism, for that is not 
under consideration. It is enough to say that 
the sacred writings must be subjected to the 
same tests as those applied to other writings. 
All that is meant is that too often Christian 
critics seem to lose sight altogether of the di- 
vine element in the problem, accepting on the 
basis of reason truths which they never could 
have got except by revelation, and rejecting 
other truths which came precisely in the same 
[ 194] 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 

way, simply because they do not seem reason- 
able. Here again the question is not as to re- 
sults, but as to spirit and method. The results 
may be correct — may be accepted by all within 
the next twenty-five years. But if there is such 
a thing as a relationship between God and man, 
if God has revealed Himself, these are facts 
which ought to be considered. To think of 
religion as a mere rational thing, separate and 
apart from revelation, is what no Christian can 
afford to do. It is something which no critic 
attempting as a Christian to interpret Christian- 
ity for other Christians ought to permit him- 
self to do. Yet it is easy to fall into this error. 
It is a mistake to consider certain great doc- 
trines with little or no reference to the body of 
truth of which they are a part, to tradition, to 
institutions such as the church, and to rites, 
ceremonies and sacraments. Almost invariably 
our new teachers are weak on the institutional 
side. Yet it is most important. The very 
truth itself took form in these institutions, and 
they body it forth and manifest it to the world. 
We ought at least to consider the relation of 
things. For what we have to deal with is not 
a few detached truths, but a body of truth, 

[195] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

each part of which is related to every other 
part, a body of truth that lives and is capable 
of imparting life to men. And yet, as a rule, 
we discuss these great Christian dogmas as 
though they were mere mathematical formulae, 
unrelated to anything else or to one another, 
and we hope to make them more reasonable by 
isolating them from the body of which they 
are a necessary and vital part. We are very 
prone to forget this, but when we do forget it 
our reasoning as Christian critics, seeking to 
strengthen the faith of our brethren, is largely 
vitiated. To attempt to deal with the nature 
or the person of Christ apart from the church, 
the creeds, history and, above all, the sacra- 
ments, is to invite certain failure — for all the 
elements just enumerated, and many more, are 
legitimate and necessary parts of the problem. 
We must remember then, that God can be 
known only through the Spirit, that revelation 
is a great fact, and that we have to do with a 
body of truth which is interdependent, and 
related to many things. That is, we must re- 
member all this if we assume to argue as Chris- 
tians desirous of preserving the essential faith. 
Again, the subject is often discussed as 

[i 9 6] 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 

though it were entirely apart from history, 
and had no relation to individual personal ex- 
perience. Many of our friends consider these 
great questions almost as they would were they 
entirely new — presented for the first time. Yet 
every principle or dogma has a history, and, 
what is more important, every such dogma is 
related to the historic development of the race 
on religious lines. Christianity is, of course, 
fundamentally a life, but it is also a historic 
fact, appearing in human life at a certain time 
in the world's history, preached by men of 
whose existence there is no possible doubt, and 
testified to by a great organization which is 
itself historic. One might as well expect to 
understand the constitution of the United 
States without studying its origin, the views of 
the men who framed it, and the decisions of 
the courts regarding it, as to expect to under- 
stand Christianity solely in the light of present 
day knowledge. Many of our modern reform- 
ers do treat the constitution as something new, 
as something without a history. But their 
unfortunate experiences ought to teach us all 
the folly of trying to understand, interpret and 
account for Christianity apart from its historic 
[ 197 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

life. It is important to know what the first 
Christians believed and taught, what the 
apostles held to be the truth, how the creeds 
came to be made and what they were designed 
to accomplish; and even the decisions of the 
councils and the writings of the Fathers — 
which so many of us rather scorn — are at least 
part of what the lawyers call the res gestce. 
Christian truth has been at work in the world 
and in the lives of men for almost two thou- 
sand years, and it has affected history — and 
been affected by it, for the two have acted and 
reacted on each other — more powerfully than 
any other force. We have thus a great body 
of doctrine which is inextricably intertwined 
with two thousand years of human history. 
Nay, one of the fathers, evidently having the 
doctrine of the Logos in mind, insists that 
Christianity is as old as creation. 

Now the critics no doubt understand all this, 
but the point that is made is that their writings 
as a rule show almost no consciousness of it. 
They are devoid entirely of historic atmos- 
phere, reflecting no light from the past, and 
none from the historic events of which the 
Christian truths are a part. The question with 

[i 9 8] 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 

such writers is usually rather what these truths 
mean now by themselves than how they came 
to be, how it was that men ever believed them, 
or what was their effect on life. Not only is 
there a historic side to the question, there is 
also a sociological, and even a biological side. 
Christianity is in what Professor Sumner calls 
our "folk-ways" — our "mores" or customs. It 
has influenced them, and they have influenced 
it. Probably neither can be understood with- 
out some understanding of the other. This 
phase of the question certainly presents a most 
curious and interesting study. It is as im- 
portant as it is curious and interesting. But 
little attention is paid to it by the new theo- 
logians. In spite of the wise reserve and rev- 
erence which the more thoughtful and pious of 
them show, they somehow seem to be dealing 
with statements made by uninspired men of 
our own time, statements without a history, 
and having no very direct bearing on life, state- 
ments which it does not much matter whether 
men accept or not. This impression, of course, 
is not designed, but it results from the methods 
employed. 

Finally there is the question of the relation 
[ 199 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

of Christianity to life, and of its appeal to indi- 
vidual experience. Its truths are not mere 
scientific truths which have no bearing on the 
conduct of life, no message for the spiritual 
nature. Even the doctrine which seems to us 
most extravagant and unreal and even false, 
has — or has had — a great influence on the souls 
of men. It has played a part in the moral de- 
velopment of the world. One can believe in 
the atomic theory or not without affecting one's 
moral nature, or crippling one's spiritual life. 
But when we are told that "the word was made 
flesh,'' we feel, whatever we may make of it, 
that here is a truth — or at least a statement — 
which is of a very different nature, which may 
be related to great things, and which quite con- 
ceivably bears on life and its conduct. No 
Christian doctrine can be adequately dealt with 
by one who does not keep this in mind. And 
when we reflect a moment we realize that the 
dogmas of Christianity were not formulated as 
merely intellectual propositions, to be accepted 
or rejected as we choose, but were designed to 
influence life, to mold character, and to nourish 
the spiritual nature of man. All this they once 
did. Possibly they have not wholly ceased to 
[ 200 ] 



INTERPRETERS OF THE FAITH 

perform their old functions. At any rate this 
is one of the most important elements in the 
problem. Last of all is the individual ex- 
perience of millions of believers who have 
lived, and are still living by the old truths, who 
have found them fruitful, and who are able to 
point to things which the Christian faith has 
wrought in their own lives. When we remem- 
ber that we are considering not simply Chris- 
tianity, but religion, religion as a revelation, 
revelation as a body of doctrine which has a 
history, is related to history and to life, is 
intertwined with customs and habits, bears di- 
rectly on life and morals, and is testified to by a 
very wide and general human experience, we 
must feel that the problem is far from being 
the simple one that we sometimes think it. 
Religion is a matter of the heart as much as of 
the head. It is necessarily and rightly rooted 
in the affections, for it is an appeal from Eter- 
nal Love to the love in human hearts. 



[201 ] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

THERE is a theory of religion that is so 
mechanical and immoral — though not held 
with any consciousness of immorality on the 
part of those who adhere to it — that one can 
only wonder how it could ever have found 
entrance into any human mind. The theory 
is that men are always and of necessity mate- 
rially rewarded for being good, materially 
rewarded for accepting and believing the gos- 
pel. This view is not only, as has been said, me- 
chanically immoral, but it is entirely unscrip- 
tural. For the problem of the ages — the prob- 
lem that puzzled the great men of the Old 
Testament: — has been to explain why it is that 
the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. 
Indeed, one of the strongest arguments in 
favor of immortality is that another life will 
be needed to redress the wrongs and injustices 
which are so obvious here. One of the most 
mysterious of the parables of Christ deals with 
[ 202 ] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

this theme. Lazarus was a good man, and yet 
he was tortured in this world. The rich man 
was a bad man, and yet Abraham is repre- 
sented as saying to him : "Son, remember that 
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
things/' This case is quite conclusive. Laz- 
arus, the good man, received evil things in this 
life, and the rich man received good things. 
It is often so — oftener so than not. The weak 
and helpless and meek — those on whom spe- 
cial spiritual blessings are pronounced — are, al- 
most as a rule, trodden under the feet of the 
proud and the prosperous. Goodness in itself 
means, or ought to mean, prosperity. The 
only goodness that is approved by God is good- 
ness for its own sake, and without the remotest 
thought of reward. Divine truth is not some- 
thing in which a man can invest with any hope 
whatever of drawing dividends that will pay 
for earth's luxuries. That truth is something 
through which we grow in character, and not 
at all in wealth. 

No doctrine can be more dangerous than the 

one under consideration. For those who hold 

that prosperity is the reward of goodness are 

almost certain to cease to be good when the 

[203] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

supposed reward is withdrawn. If there is 
such a bargain it seems only fair that God 
shall keep His part of it. And when He does not 
the man is likely to consider himself absolved 
from its obligations. At least there is almost 
certain to be a challenge of the divine justice, 
and a complaining at what the man thinks un- 
deserved punishment. If what Christ said of 
riches and of rich men is true, God could 
hardly do a more cruel thing than to give 
wealth to a good man, to make material pros- 
perity the reward of virtue. For this would be 
to expose goodness and virtue to a very cor- 
rupting and deadly influence — that is, if Christ 
was right when He said that it is harder for a 
rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven than 
for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. 
The real rewards — and the only ones worth 
striving for — are peace, a sense of being right 
with God, an undaunted soul, and the very vir- 
tue itself which is so great a thing as to be 
above all earthly reward. A man who has 
these can not be overthrown nor shaken by the 
storms of fate. 

But the theory is not only mechanical and 
dangerous, it is grossly immoral as well, and in 
[ 2 °4 ] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

many ways. Only one point can be made in 
this connection. Men who believe that they 
are prosperous because they are good, are al- 
most certain to end by believing that they are 
good because they are prosperous. They look 
on their worldly state as proof of their high 
virtue. "God," they feel, if they do not say, 
"gave me this wealth because I am good, and 
therefore my possession of the wealth is ob- 
viously a proof of my goodness." That is a 
most immoral view, and for two reasons. In 
the first place, when a man begins to feel sure 
that he is good — forgetting that he is funda- 
mentally a sinner, with almost boundless evil 
possibilities and propensities in him — he has 
taken the first step on the road to badness. In 
the second place, the man is certain to pass 
from thinking wealth a proof of virtue to 
thinking it a virtue in itself. He compares 
himself with others, always to his own ad- 
vantage, and, as he thinks he is virtuous be- 
cause he is rich, he concludes that those who 
are poor are wicked. And so we have at 
last what is really a horrible reversal of the 
divine law, and a wicked upsetting of the divine 
standards. The only really good men are those 
[205] 4 



DAY UNTO DAY 

who are good even though God slays them, 
only those who would be good even if they 
were convinced that there was no God at all, 
who would tread the hard path of duty even if 
all light and hope should be withdrawn from 
them. Perfection proves itself, and virtue is 
its own evidence. They are to be striven for 
for their own sake, and to be admired and de- 
sired as positive goods in themselves. 

It is, of course, true that happiness is at- 
tached to virtue. But the trouble is that we 
do not understand clearly in what happiness 
consists. We measure it by purely worldly 
standards, and confuse it with those things 
which are designed to gratify merely earthly 
desires. Thinking thus, it is quite impossible 
for us to see that God may often most truly 
reward men by taking from them their for- 
tunes. Yet this is clear. Happiness then is 
a delight in truth and goodness, a joy which 
comes from endeavoring to make the will of 
God prevail. It was in such things as these 
that the Psalmist took pleasure. "My delight 
is in the law of the Lord." The counsels of 
the Lord were "dearer to him than thousands 
of gold and silver." He loved these, not be- 
[206] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

cause he was paid for loving them, but because 
he could not help doing so. There is, and can 
be, no artificial and arbitrary reward for doing 
things which we ought not to be able to leave 
undone without being wretched. There can be 
no higher joy than that of seeing in ourselves 
or in others some approximation to that divine 
life which we know to be the only life that has 
any real value. The reward — to call a high 
thing by an unworthy name — is in the realiza- 
tion, if only in part, of the ideal which Christi- 
anity sets before us. The reward is in the life 
itself. It is not something attached to the life 
— it grows directly out of it, and is an inherent 
element in it. Such happiness as this, as we 
see it shining forth in such a life as that of 
St. Paul, can not be affected in the slightest 
degree by any change in worldly circumstances. 
If he has the spirit of the thing in him a man 
will be happy whether he is rich or poor, with 
rather a better chance for happiness if he is 
poor. To think of being paid for loving what 
is good is to confess that we would not love 
it without being paid, which is to love the 
wages and not the good thing itself. 

But it will be said that rewards are prom- 
[207] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

ised in the other world — eternal life, the crown 
of life, etc. And this, of course, is true. But 
this may be admitted without strengthening in 
any way the theory of life now being consid- 
ered. We make mistakes, however, in this 
matter, too. Men, influenced by the com- 
mercial view of religion, and used to the sys- 
tem of rewards and penalties which they see 
in operation in this world, do not stop to think 
what the divine rewards are. These are not 
things given as mere rewards of virtue, though, 
of course, a narrow interpretation of certain 
Bible texts does seem to establish this theory. 
But it is a wrong theory nevertheless. We 
know perfectly well that even in this world the 
highest services are never paid for — never can 
be paid for. You can not pay a man for sav- 
ing you from drowning, and most assuredly 
it is impossible to think of anything that could 
compensate for the sacrifice of another life for 
your own. Here we rise far above any pos- 
sible scale of rewards. If this is so even in thisi 
world, how much more true it must be in the 
world that is to be ! God does not promise us 
heaven as a reward for a good life here. What 
He does promise is that by a good life here wq 
[208] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

shall be so trained and developed that we shall 
be fit for a perfect environment hereafter. As 
we grow more and more capable of loving vir- 
tue, so shall we grow more and more fit to en- 
joy that social order in which virtue prevails 
absolutely. And the reward is, not heaven, 
but the capacity to enjoy that perfect existence 
for which the name stands. So there is no 
"pay" for living virtuous and noble lives. 
Those lives are their own reward and will be 
their own crown. Men are to grow into the 
future life precisely as they grow in grace here. 
No man would want to be rewarded hereafter 
for doing things in this world which, if he is 
a good man, it ought to be his highest pleasure 
to do. So even the eternal rewards are not 
really rewards at all — certainly not in the sense 
in which the word is generally used here. 

Finally, it must never be forgotten in a pleas- 
ure-loving age, in an age in which even re- 
ligion is molded so as to minister to man's ma- 
terial enjoyment, that virtue and perfection are 
the products of hard and painful work, and of 
self-sacrificing service. This obvious truth, a 
truth that stands out on almost every page of 
the Bible, is quite ignored by those who con- 
[209] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

hect goodness and earthly pleasure. Men can 
not win happiness, as happiness is understood 
by a pleasure-loving people, by sacrificing them- 
selves for others, or by dying to sin. Men can 
only be happy when they get what they desire, 
and they can only be truly happy when they de- 
sire the highest and noblest things, things which 
can be enjoyed without a taint of selfishness. In 
the most sacred relations even in this life we 
know very well that there is no place for the ap- 
plication of the commercial theory. Men do 
their duty because it is their duty, and not be- 
cause they are paid for doing it. And there is no 
duty that a man does that is not a duty to God. 
Only on this basis can the two lives — that 
which is now and that which is to come — be 
reconciled. Indeed, when considered thus, we 
see that they are the same life. Man is not a 
hireling, but a son in the divine household, 
whose highest joy ought to be and is — if he be 
truly a Christian — in doing the divine will. 
We are so constituted that we admire a perfect 
piece of work — a picture or a book — and ad- 
mire it because it is perfect. And the closer 
a life or a character approaches perfection the 
stronger is its appeal to us. This craving for 
J>io] 



REWARDS OF RELIGION 

perfection lies at the very roots of our nature, 
and this of itself is enough to disprove and dis- 
credit hopelessly the mercantile theory of life, 
whether applied to this world or to the world 
to come. 



[211] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

THERE is no doubt such a thing as heresy, 
and yet the very word itself is, as the 
logicians have pointed out, a question-begging 
term. It is, too, a term which should have the 
narrowest application which it is possible to 
give it. The man who differs from us in re- 
ligious thought, even though this difference 
leads him to reject certain generally accepted 
doctrines, is by no means necessarily a heretic. 
Considering the matter from the point of view 
even of an orthodox theology there must be 
dissent from a divinely revealed body of truth 
— heresy indeed implies by negation the exist- 
ence of such a revelation. There is a great body 
of belief which has grown up about this divine 
revelation which is generally held, but which 
a man may refuse to accept without being 
guilty of the fault of heresy. Many religious 
teachers, who insist that you shall accept not 
only the truth, but the truth as they see it and 

[212] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

interpret it, with all the glosses they may choose 
to put upon it, will not admit this. But the 
fact is nevertheless clear. Dissent from your 
minister may not be heresy in any sense of the 
word. Heresy has little or nothing to do with 
the drawing of conclusions, for that is an in- 
tellectual process. Two men may hold precisely 
the same divine truth, and so be in perfect 
agreement as to the fundamental thing, and 
yet differ widely in the construction they put 
on it, or the application they make of it. Nei- 
ther the one nor the other is necessarily a 
heretic, though both may be. One is as likely 
to be as the other. Even when it comes to the 
broad question of the acceptance of truth the 
case is not always clear. For here, too, the 
process is intellectual as well as moral, and 
men differ in intellectual capacity. Almost 
never is there any moral question involved. 
One man finds it easy to believe a certain thing, 
while another, with the best intention in the 
world, is unable to do so. If the non-believer 
is a heretic at all it must be in a sense which 
involves no moral turpitude, and assuredly no 
sin. We need to be careful how we judge men 
in this matter. 

[213] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

It is surprising how men with the stiffest 
religious faith glide easily over heresy on the 
part of those Bible heroes whom they hold up 
to us, and properly, as examples. We have 
such a case as this in the life of St. Paul. In 
his defense before Felix, after denying the 
charges against him, the apostle went on to 
say : "But this I confess unto thee, that after 
the way which they call heresy, so worship I 
the God of my fathers, believing all things 
which are written in the law and in the proph- 
ets: and have hope toward God, which they 
themselves also allow, that there shall be a 
resurrection of the dead, both of the just and 
the unjust." Now, who were the "they" from 
whose interpretation of the Scriptures St. Paul 
admitted that he dissented? The officers and 
ministers of the divinely established church of 
God — these and no others. It was not a ques- 
tion of differing from the Stoics and Epi- 
cureans, but from those to whom the oracles 
of God had been committed. If it be held that 
the apostle had a new and better revelation, 
it is still to be said, in the first place, that this 
is the claim which every heretic makes, and in 
the second place, that he did not appeal to such 
[214] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

revelation in this speech before Felix as a justi- 
fication of his action. On the contrary, he in- 
sisted that he worshiped the God of his fa- 
thers, and that he believed "all things which are 
written in the law and in the prophets." He 
declared that he had precisely the same "hope 
toward God" that they had, and that he and 
they agreed in thinking that there was to be a 
resurrection of the dead. In a word he argued 
that he was not a heretic in the sense that he 
rejected the old faith, but only in the sense 
that he rejected what the inspired teachers of 
that faith held to be the truth. "After the way 
which they call heresy," he said, "so worship 
I the God of my fathers." He believed that 
he held the truth, but he admitted, not that he 
did not hold it as his accusers held it, but that 
they did not think he so held it. He was, in 
short, a heretic simply because he had been 
read out of the synagogue by the religious 
teachers of the day. 

Two things are to be remembered in this 
connection. The first is that the Jews, St. Paul 
among them, believed that they had a divine 
revelation ; that the Old Testament was the re- 
vealed word of God, and that the Jewish church 

[215] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

was put into the world by God as the interpreter 
and defender and teacher of that revelation. 
Dissent was, therefore, undoubtedly heresy. 
The other thing to be borne in mind is that 
even St. Paul, the most catholic-minded of the 
apostles, the apostle to the Gentiles in a special 
sense, held this view. We forget that in the 
beginning there was no intention on the part 
of the Christians to separate themselves from 
the old church. In one place we read that a 
multitude of the priests believed, yet they did 
not cease to be priests. In this very chapter 
St. Paul tells us that "certain Jews from Asia 
found me purified in the temple," thus making 
it clear that almost up to the close of his Chris- 
tian ministry he observed the ceremonial law. 
Christian teachers even of our own day are 
careful to point out that Christ said that He 
did not come to destroy, but to fulfil, and that 
the law was not to pass away till all was ful- 
filled. This was undoubtedly the attitude of 
the early Christians who made every effort to 
graft the new faith on the old, and to show 
how the new was developed out of the old 
without changing it in any essential particular. 
In view of all this, we can see very easily how 

[216] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

serious, from a theological point of view, was 
the charge against St. Paul. Yet he was forced 
to admit its truth in so far as it involved a dif- 
ference between himself and the official and in- 
spired teachers of the Jewish people, the heads 
of the church which had been founded by God 
Himself. 

Yet there are many men to-day who can and 
do say with St. Paul, "But this I confess unto 
thee, that after the way which they call heresy, 
so worship I the God of my fathers, believing 
all things which are written in the law and in 
the prophets" — the "they" then, as now, being 
the officers and councils of the church, a church 
which is no more divine than was the Jewish 
church, and in no closer relations to God than 
that church believed itself to be. It would seem 
as though the lesson ought to be learned — as 
though the church of our day should avoid 
falling into the error of the church of St. Paul's 
day. It is claiming the same right, the right 
of declaring a man a heretic for dissenting, not 
from divine truth, but from a supposed divine 
interpretation or statement of that truth. Yet 
the very men who are loudest in their denun- 
ciations of heretics, who may condemn them 
[217] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

on the evidence of St. Paul himself, neverthe- 
less accept St. Paul as their inspired guide, a 
man who admitted himself to be a heretic in 
the very sense in which men are to-day being 
condemned as heretics. And the spirit of the 
modern theologians is painfully like that of 
Tertullus and the others who accused St. Paul 
before Felix. We can not read the speech of 
Tertullus the orator, without thinking of cer- 
tain things that have been said by other orators 
with whom, perhaps, we are more familiar. He 
said: 

"We have found this man a pestilent fellow, 
and a mover of sedition among all the Jews 
throughout the world, and a ringleader of the 
sect of the Nazarenes: who also hath gone 
about to profane the temple." 

There is certainly the odium theologicum 
which still marks so much of our religious dis- 
cussion. The heretic was, then as now, a nui- 
sance, a profaner of sacred things, and the 
mover of sedition. And then as now it was the 
orators that were mostly disturbed. Yet the 
purpose of this "pestilent fellow" in coming to 
Jerusalem was, as he said, "to bring alms to 
my nation, and offerings." But he was a 

[218] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

heretic, and so "Felix, willing to shew the Jews 
a pleasure, left Paul bound." 

So, too, a movement, even though it be with- 
in the church, of which we do not approve, is 
always "a sect." St. Paul was a leader of "the 
sect of the Nazarenes," from which we see that 
the Christian church was simply a hated sect 
in the eyes of the leaders of the religious 
thought of that day. We use the same un- 
christian language, and have much of the same 
unchristian spirit. St. Paul himself ought to 
teach us better. When he went to Athens he 
did not denounce the Athenians as idolators, 
sectarians or heretics. On the contrary he told 
them that he had come to declare to them the 
very same God whom they had always, though 
in ignorance, worshiped. The Athenians were 
as much God's children as the Jews or the 
Christians were, a fact which, as he pointed 
out, had been made clear by one of the Greek 
poets, who said, "for we are also his offspring." 
The whole sermon delivered on Mars hill was 
based on the doctrine of the brotherhood of 
man and the solidarity of the human race. 
They were all adoring a God who "hath made 
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell 
[219] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

on all the face of the earth," a God who is "not 
far from every one of us." That is the sort of 
preaching that men needed then, that they need 
to-day, that they always will need. There is 
not much danger that any of us will be too 
broad-minded and liberal. The danger is rather 
the other way. We want all the liberality, all 
the noble catholicity that we are likely to get, 
and a good deal more. And surely we need an 
infinite charity and patience that will at least 
prevent us from narrowing the boundaries of 
that kingdom which Almighty God meant to 
be a universal kingdom. Possibly it would be 
safer to allow God Himself, speaking through 
the conscience of those who seek to approach 
Him through His church, to say who is fit to 
belong to the church than to trust that power 
to men who, no matter how much they may 
think themselves to be inspired, are, neverthe- 
less, fallible, as all mortals are. 

Nothing is catholic — and how sadly that 
great word is misused ! — that is not broad, lib- 
eral, tolerant and universal. It is easy to sneer 
at liberality — and yet its opposite is narrow- 
ness, smallness, and bigotry. There is nothing 
in the world more free and liberal than the 
[220 ] 



THE QUESTION OF HERESY 

Christian religion as it existed in the mind of 
Christ. Any one who did God's will was ac- 
cepted by Christ as His brother. Any one who 
did God's work was in the way of salvation. 
For instance, we have the following declara- 
tion of a great principle; 

"And John answered Him, saying, Master 
we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and 
he followeth not us; and we forbade him, be- 
cause he followeth not us. But Jesus said, 
Forbid him not: for there is no man which 
shall do a miracle in My name, that can lightly 
speak evil of Me. For he that is not against us 
is on our part. For whosoever shall give you 
a cup of water to drink in My name, because 
ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he 
shall not lose his reward." 

It is the old cry — "he followeth not us." 
We see how Christ answered it. Unfortunately, 
the church of Christ has not been true to the 
principles of its divine leader. It has often 
been more concerned because men did not seem 
to follow it than because they did not give the 
cup of cold water. Nothing, as has been said, 
could be broader and more liberal than the prin- 
ciples of Jesus Christ. The difficulty is that 

[221 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

they are so broad and liberal as to be beyond 
our comprehension. Christians are still in 
bondage to the old, narrow, legalizing spirit, 
and so are still in need of baptism into that 
divine truth which is to make them free. What 
we have to do with is not a mechanism, but a 
spirit and influence designed to regenerate the 
world, which alone can regenerate it. The first 
thing to do is to put ourselves under the do- 
minion of that spirit to the end that we our- 
selves may be regenerated. With the new birth 
we shall be slow to condemn him who "follow- 
eth not us," slow to talk about sects, and very 
slow, indeed, to accuse a brother of heresy. 
Nor shall we then distrust liberality, liberality 
even of a type which now seems to us, in our 
narrowness, to be extreme and dangerous. 



[ 222 ] 



HYPOCRISY 

"TV TO doubt many have read the parable of the 
-*- ^ pharisee and the publican without ever 
having considered at all one of its most im- 
portant lessons. We have dwelt much on the 
attitude of the two men toward God, and on 
that of the pharisee toward the publican. But 
little has been said of the attitude of the pub- 
lican toward the pharisee. And yet from a con- 
sideration of this phase of the problem we may 
draw a most helpful moral. It is that in con- 
demning the pharisee we may be in grave dan- 
ger of falling into precisely his sin. It may be 
as wrong for us to compare ourselves with him 
as it was for him to compare himself with the 
publican. In thanking God that we are not as 
the pharisee, we may ourselves put ourselves 
in his class. Hypocrisy, therefore, is the one 
sin that it may be dangerous to hate, though 
we must hate it. Therefore, it is important 
that we should at least try to imagine the feel- 
[223] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

ings of the publican. They are not revealed to 
us in the parable, and yet we can hardly doubt 
that the poor man looked up to and honored 
his rich and prominent countryman. It would 
never have occurred to him to compare himself 
favorably with that splendid figure, one of the 
nation's leaders. The only thing that filled his 
mind was a sense of his own unworthiness in 
the sight of God. He would probably have ad- 
mitted that the pharisee was justified in his 
self-righteous prayer. We should not forget 
that the parable was spoken "unto certain 
which trusted in themselves that they were 
righteous, and despised others." The publican 
was commended because he did not trust in 
himself or despise others. And yet in reading 
the parable many people unconsciously adopt 
precisely the point of view of the pharisee, 
comparing themselves with him, and thanking 
God that they are not as he is. So it is that in 
our very denunciations of hypocrisy we may 
easily become hypocrites ourselves. There is 
no other sin toward which this perilous attitude 
is possible. We do not become murderers by 
despising murderers or murder. But we may 
become hypocrites by despising hypocrisy. 
[224] 



HYPOCRISY 

There is thus something peculiar about this 
sin. It has a sort of self -breeding quality. In 
our very efforts to escape from it we may 
easily, and all unconsciously fall into it. In- 
deed, the line is hard to draw. For men have 
a right to be proud of a clean and honorable 
life, a good name, a noble ancestry, and a dis- 
position to be true to lofty ideals. They have 
a right, too, to be humbly thankful that they 
are not as those who have none of these things. 
If virtue is better than vice a virtuous man is 
better than a vicious man, and his realization 
of that fact does not make him a hypocrite. A 
good many years ago it was fashionable to de- 
nounce what was supposed to be the pharisee- 
ism of reform. "If," said George William Cur- 
tis, the prince of reformers, "a man proposes 
the redress of any public wrong, he is asked 
severely whether he considers himself so much 
wiser and better than other men, that he must 
disturb the existing order, and pose as a saint." 
"If," Mr. Curtis went on, "he denounces an 
evil, he is exhorted to beware of spiritual 
pride." Spiritual pride is a bad thing, no doubt, 
and yet Curtis was right when he summed up 
the matter thus : 

[225] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

"To the cant about the phariseeism of re- 
form there is but one short and final answer. 
The man who tells the truth is holier than the 
liar. The man who does not steal is better than 
the thief." 

So it seems there may be cant on both sides. 
In this day, when we are all reformers together, 
the old sneer against reform has lost its point. 
Reform is fashionable, and being fashionable 
it may have taken on a tinge of phariseeism 
that it did not have in the old days. What is 
important is that we should realize that an un- 
willingness to blur moral distinctions is no 
proof whatever of phariseeism. "Was Abra- 
ham Lincoln," said Mr. Curtis; "saying of the 
American Union, 'a house divided against it- 
self can not stand/ assuming to be holier than 
other Americans ?" Surely not, and yet that is 
precisely the conclusion to which we are likely 
to come unless we are careful. 

And so, could the publican have known the 
sin of the pharisee, he would have been wrong* 
not to condemn it, wrong not to be thankful 
that at least that sin was not his. And the 
pharisee would not have been condemned, and 
was not condemned for his thankfulness that 
[226] 



HYPOCRISY 

he had not fallen into the vices that marred the 
life of the publican. What was denounced was 
the sin of self -righteousness, which is the es- 
sence of hypocrisy. And it is a sin to which 
those whom we think of as good people are 
specially prone. Perhaps the error consists in 
considering men to be of the same texture 
throughout. If people know that they are good 
in some respects they are very likely to think 
that they are good in all respects — good all the 
way through. And they are almost certain to 
think that the man who is bad in some respects 
is bad in all. It is hard to avoid making this 
mistake, hard because our judgments are neces- 
sarily so partial. We almost of necessity judge 
men by their actions, judge them in entire ig- 
norance of their motives. It is not easy to 
make allowances or to realize that it is vastly 
harder for some to be good than it is for others. 
Temptations that make no appeal to us may 
appeal to another with an almost irresistible 
force. If he resists them he is stronger than 
we are — stronger and better. But this factor 
is hardly ever taken into consideration. Indeed, 
it is one about which in the nature of the case 
we can know little or nothing. Thus it hap- 
[227] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

pens that many a man is condemned as wholly 
bad simply because &e has done one wrong 
thing, when, as a matter of fact, he may in his 
heart be a better man than those who condemn 
him. And these latter, comparing themselves 
with him, may arrogate to themselves a virtue 
which they are very far from possessing. They 
may even belong among those of whom it was 
said that they "trusted in themselves that they 
were righteous, and despised others." The com- 
plexity of the problem thus grows out of the 
complexity of human nature of which we as a 
rule take no account in our judgments. 

There is in human nature a tendency to con- 
demn those who devote themselves wholly to 
the preaching of a certain gospel, no matter 
how good and true it may be. The assumption 
is that those who denounce a certain sin or 
praise a certain virtue are holding themselves 
out as the embodiment of all they praise, as the 
antithesis of all they condemn. When Carlyle, 
for instance, thunders against cant, we have a 
feeling that he believes in his own heart that 
he is the only man in the world that is free 
from cant. And that is a most unjust conclu- 
sion. For a preacher to be worth anything- 
[228] 



HYPOCRISY 

must preach a gospel that is far beyond him — 
else his preaching will count for little. To as- 
sume that he is of the opinion that the ideal 
which he holds up is realized in his own life is 
most unreasonable and unfair. Yet the atti- 
tude is natural, for we feel that, even though 
the writer or preacher makes no comparison 
between himself and others, there is a sort of 
tacit comparison, and that in his heart he has 
an undue admiration for himself and his own 
merits. He seems to except himself from the 
condemnation that he visits on others, and to 
be sure that he is at least free from that sin 
for which he professes such indignant and 
scornful contempt. But the truer view is that 
these fiery apostles are really preaching to 
themselves as much as to others — that they oc- 
cup)' both pulpit and pew. And this, of course, 
is the attitude that should be taken by all who 
hope to escape falling into the vice of hypoc- 
risy. The thing to do is, not to compare oneself 
with others, but rather to measure oneself and 
others alike by the ideal standard. One who 
uses that process is not likely to be guilty of 
the sin of the pharisee. It is no great achieve- 
ment for one weak and sinful man to excel 
[ 229 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

other weak and sinful men. What is great is 
to approximate in any degree to the divine per- 
fection, and to realize that the power to do this 
is the gift of God. 

The case of St. Paul is instructive. He did 
not hesitate to compare himself with his fel- 
low apostles, did not doubt that in the amount 
of work done by him for the new religion he 
had excelled them all. At least this is what he 
says. "I labored," he says, "more abundantly 
than they all." He was the victim of no false 
shame. To him the value and the magnitude 
of his work were clear. Nevertheless, he said : 
"I am the least of the apostles, that am not 
meet to be called an apostle, because I perse- 
cuted the church of God." In judging himself 
he took account of all the factors, omitting 
none. And when he came to appraise his work, 
he said : "I labored more abundantly than they 
all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was 
with me." He did not thank God that he had 
outstripped the other apostles in certain direc- 
tions, but he was humbly grateful that the di- 
vine power had worked so successfully through 
him. "By the grace of God," he says, "I am 
what I am : and His grace which was bestowed 
[230] 



HYPOCRISY 

upon me was not in vain; but I labored more 
abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the 
grace of God which was with me." It was the 
work that towered above everything else. The 
workman was nothing. "Therefore/' he con- 
cludes, "whether it were I or they, so we preach 
and so ye believed." This was the apostle's at- 
titude throughout his ministry. The whole the- 
ory of preaching is summed up in these words : 

"And I was with you in weakness, and in 
fear, and in much trembling. And my speech 
and my preaching was not with enticing words 
of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the 
Spirit and of power. That your faith should 
not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the 
power of God." 

It was the message and not the messenger 
that was to convert the world. Men who are 
influenced by oratory and eloquence rather than 
by the truth do not get the message. So we see 
that there can be a sort of appraisement of 
oneself by comparison with others which does 
not issue in hypocrisy. "By the grace of 
God I am what I am." Happy is the man who 
can honestly feel that that grace is not be- 
stowed in vain. 

[231 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

The conclusion, of course, is that men ought, 
as far as possible, to learn to consider their 
work apart from themselves, and to try to real- 
ize that the main thing is that the work should 
be done. "Whether it were I or they," one 
should rejoice that the task is performed, with- 
out thinking too much of one's relationship to 
it or part in it No man, perhaps, is "meet to 
be called an apostle," and yet many men are 
doing an apostle's work. The standard by 
which such a one should measure himself is the 
ideal of apostleship, and not at all the achieve- 
ments or character of another, who also may 
not be "meet to be called an apostle." Hypoc- 
risy can not grow out of such a state of mind 
and soul. The man who has this point of view 
can hate hypocrisy as it deserves to be hated 
without being in the least danger of himself 
becoming a hypocrite. Sorrow that we are not 
what we ought to be, rather than joy because 
we seem to be better than some one else, should 
mark the lives of all serious and thoughtful 
men, should mark the lives, indeed, of all men 
who know themselves and the weaknesses of 
their own nature. What we are depends on 
our advantages, opportunities and powers — 
[232] 



HYPOCRISY 

and these are gifts, things which we did not 
make for ourselves, and of which we have no 
right to be proud, except in a thankful and 
humble way. It was Thackeray who said that 
he might have played the part of lord mayor 
very creditably had the chance come to him, 
and that if he had been schooled in vice, tor- 
tured by hunger, kept from books and decent 
company, he would have been as quick as any 
highwayman to take a purse had it come in his 
way. There is much truth in this. Not that 
men can not resist and fight against evil, but 
that those who are favored by fortune ought 
to be charitable to those who are broken by ad- 
verse fate. A knowledge of oneself, and of 
human nature, ought to serve to make one won- 
drously gentle — except toward hypocrisy, 
which is the sin of sins. 



[ 233 1 



EFFECT OF POWER 

A 7TUCH may be learned from the dream of 
-L ▼ A Solomon — that dream in which the Lord 
appeared unto him and promised him the great 
gift of wisdom. The wise king prayed thus to 
God: "O Lord my God, thou hast made thy 
servant king instead of David my father : and 
I am but a little child : I know not how to go 
out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst 
of thy people which Thou hast chosen, a great 
people, that can not be numbered nor counted 
for multitude." And so the king asked for "an 
understanding heart to judge thy people, that 
I may discern between good and bad : for who 
is able to judge this thy so great people?" 
Few things are more interesting than the study 
of the effects of power on those who wield it. 
There is no reason to doubt that Solomon felt 
all the humility that he expressed, that he did 
honestly distrust himself and his capacities. 
No one has ever suggested that the attitude was 
[234] 



EFFECT OF POWER 

a mere pose. And yet he thought of himself as 
"a little child," and as such quite unequal to 
the responsibilities that were laid on him. On. 
the whole, it is probably fair to say that this is 
not the modern view. Men who seek office in 
this country assert by their very quest that they 
are fit for the positions to which they aspire, 
and therefore they can not have any of that 
sense of inadequacy which was so strong in this 
king of Israel. On the contrary, one who felt 
that he was called by God would almost natur-. 
ally shrink from the burden of rule, as Moses 
did, for the mere thought of being the direct 
agent of the Almighty is enough to stagger any 
one. So it was easier for Solomon than it is 
for our modern rulers to appreciate his utter 
dependence on God. At any rate, it is certain 
that he did question his fitness to act as an 
agent for the fulfillment of the divine purposes. 
Of course, it was true of many men in the 
old days, as it is true of men to-day, that they 
did actively seek high place, and were su- 
premely confident of their ability to fill it. But 
this seems to be the general feeling at the pres- 
ent time. Men rush madly after power, crowd 
themselves into office, and take the ground, not 
[ 235 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

that they are not qualified, but that they are 
the only ones who are qualified. And when 
they are in office they carry themselves with a 
jaunty confidence that nothing can shake. Even 
the cares of office, which of themselves would 
almost crush a man who felt that he was "but 
a little child," are not enough to absorb their 
energies. Strangers to humility from the out- 
set, they grow further and further away from 
it as the seductions of power begin to work in 
their souls. They look on themselves, not as 
charged with a trusteeship which they may, 
through their weakness, fail to perform, but as 
almost owners of the office which they use to 
force their views on the people. It is probably 
fair to say that no man is quite safe to trust 
with power who has not at least a glimmer of 
that humble spirit which shines out in the 
prayer of Solomon. Probably the nearest ap- 
proach to the old model that we have had is 
Abraham Lincoln. On his journey to Wash- 
ington to assume the great office to which he 
was elected, Mr. Lincoln made an address to 
the legislature of New York, in which he said : 
"It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I 
may say, feelings even of awe, perhaps greater 

[236] 



EFFECT OF POWER 

than I have recently experienced, that I meet 
you here in this place. The history of this great 
state, the renown of its great men, who have 
stood in this chamber, and have spoken their 
thoughts, all crowd around my fancy, and in- 
cline me to shrink from an attempt to address 
you. * * * It is true that, while I hold 
myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of 
all the individuals who have ever been elected 
President of the United States, I yet have a 
more difficult task to perform than any one of 
them has ever encountered." 

And no American can ever forget the solemn 
words that he addressed to his friends and 
neighbors of Springfield when he was leaving 
them: 

"No one not in my position can appreciate 
the sadness I feel at this parting. To this peo- 
ple I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more 
than a quarter of a century. Here my children 
were born, and here one of them lies buried. 
I know not how soon I shall see you again. A 
duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, 
greater than that which has devolved upon any 
other man since the days of Washington. He 
never could have succeeded except for aid of 



DAY UNTO DAY 

divine Providence, upon which he at all times 
relied. I feel that I can not succeed without 
the same divine aid which sustained him, and 
in the same Almighty Being I place my reliance 
for support; and I hope you, my friends, will 
all pray that I may receive that divine assist- 
ance, without which I can not succeed, but with 
which success is certain. Again, I bid you all 
an affectionate farewell." 

That is altogether in the old vein. "I am," 
Lincoln once said, "just humble Abe Lincoln." 
He wielded a power which no other American 
president ever wielded, and yet how gentle, and 
self-distrustful he was at all times ! Power so- 
bered and restrained him, and added to that 
deep humility which was an important trait in 
his character. It brought out all that was best 
in him and made him greater, and truer and 
nobler than he was before he came to be the 
head of this Government. "I am but a little 
child" — the words are his, too. We can almost 
hear him say "Who is able to judge this thy so 
great people?" Power was a burden and re- 
sponsibility, and never something to be en- 
joyed or used for its own sake. And so it was 
that he was greater even than the great office 

[238] 



EFFECT OF POWER 

which he so splendidly administered. The ter- 
rible test to which he was subjected only served 
to show the high quality of the man. What he 
shrank from was not the danger, not the threat 
of civil war, not the work, but the power itself 
to which he believed himself, "except for the 
aid of divine Providence," unequal. He looked 
on office, not as a platform on which to display 
his ability, but as a call to a duty which he 
feared that he would not be strong enough to 
perform. So his trust was not in himself, but 
in God, and in the people, whose servant he 
was. Facing the crisis of his own and his coun- 
try's life, he was almost overwhelmed with the 
sense of his responsibility. It was so with the 
prophets of old. It has been so with every great 
and good man since. 

There is nothing that we need in this coun- 
try more at the present time than a recurrence 
to this old, and now faraway ideal. No doubt, 
if we shall ever be called on to face such trials 
as those through which we passed in Mr. Lin- 
coln's time, we shall again see something of 
that old spirit. But we need it now, need it all 
the while. For there are always dangers to be 
met, always emergencies to be dealt with. And 
[ 239 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

only those men can surmount the dangers and 
meet the emergencies who have the sense of 
dependence on some power outside of them- 
selves. It is, of course, harder to reach the 
heights of excellence in ordinary times than in 
times of stress and peril. But nevertheless 
some upward progress may be made if we will 
but remember that office is not reward, but 
simply opportunity for service. And the qual- 
ity of service we get depends largely, if not 
wholly, on the attitude which men maintain 
toward office and power. A servant, to be sure, 
ought to feel that he is capable of doing his 
work, but he ought, also, to feel that he is 
bound to fail unless he devotes himself with 
the utmost faithfulness to the task assigned to 
him, a task which he can not perform except 
in so far as he forgets himself in his work. 
The very bearing of the man may, nay must, 
have an influence on the character and quality 
of his work, as it certainly will have an influ- 
ence — and of the profoundest sort — on his own 
nature. No man has ever greatly succeeded 
who did not look beyond himself. Even Na- 
poleon, who is always cited as the representa- 
[240] 



EFFECT OF POWER 

tive of absolute and selfish power, was led by 
his "star." 

Of course, this man is not to be mentioned 
in the same breath with such a man as Abra- 
ham Lincoln. But even in his case it is clear 
that he relied on something greater than him- 
self — his star, or destiny, or whatever we may 
choose to call it. He had, too, the idea of serv- 
ing the people of France. So he is no excep- 
tion, though one would not choose him as an 
illustration of those qualities which were so 
finely exhibited by Lincoln, and which are so 
essential in one called to a real service to man- 
kind. But we are getting away from the truth 
about this thing, doubtless because men do not 
feel that it matters much — except from the 
narrow partisan point of view — who is elected 
to office. There are problems, it is true, but 
they do not, we feel, touch the life of the na- 
tion. Yet they may touch it. Certainly they 
are directly related to the stability of the so- 
cial order, and to the quality of the work done 
by men in office. Of course, if men have none 
of the old feeling, it would be worse than fool- 
ish to pretend to have it. Nothing can be 
[241 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

gained by assuming an attitude of humility that 
is a mere pose. Men have done this, but it has 
not helped the situation. The attitude, to be 
of any value, must grow out of an inward feel- 
ing. If the feeling is lacking the attitude is 
worth nothing. "The pride that apes humility" 
is altogether hateful. 

What is needed, therefore, is a serious con- 
sideration of the nature of public office, and of 
the relation of the citizen to it. Probably men 
will always seek it. But Lincoln sought it, and 
sought it actively. So the trouble is not in 
that, though the effect of office-seeking on 
small or egotistical men is necessarily bad and 
demoralizing. But the change, must come, if it 
comes at all, from a change in the whole atti- 
tude of the people toward this subject. We 
must all of us learn — and the lesson will be 
difficult — that it is still true that "the powers 
that be are ordained of God," that the state is 
a divine institution, that the men who bear rule 
are entitled to our respect, and that it is their 
highest duty to show themselves worthy of it. 
Office must be regarded, not as a part of the 
party machinery of state or nation, but as an 
integral part of the state itself. The powers 
[242] 



EFFECT OF POWER 

which it confers must be used solely for the 
public good. Only so will our rulers be "able 
to judge this thy so great people." We must 
exalt the idea of the state, not as the source 
or the wielder of power, but as the center of a 
delegated authority to be exercised in the inter- 
est of sound morality and of the general wel- 
fare. It will do none of us any harm to think 
on these things. So this appeal has been made 
to Solomon and to Abraham Lincoln as repre- 
senting the type, in this regard, that ought to 
prevail more and more widely. If democratic 
government is to succeed — and it is yet an ex- 
periment — it will be only on the condition that 
we are wise enough to choose public servants 
who will dread rather than seek positions of 
power, and who will realize that when chosen 
to such positions their first and only duty is to 
God, and to the people, to the administration 
of whose affairs they have been called by God. 
Something more than appointment or popular 
election is necessary. There must be in spirit, 
if not in form, the old anointing to a service 
which is truly divine. The very thought that a 
man is called to be the servant of God and of 
His people ought to make him humble. 
[243] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

THAT there was a large element of humil- 
ity in the make-up of Thackeray is clear 
from his writings. His knowledge of human 
nature, and of his own individual nature, 
which was always in his mind when he dis- 
cussed the general subject, made him very hum- 
ble. Behind his bitterest satire there is always 
a feeling of pity for man — and for himself — 
which makes the reader realize that he did not 
delight in his task, though he refused to shrink 
from what he believed to be his duty. His 
work was a burden to him, and in more ways 
than one. You can almost feel the physical 
and mental weariness that fell upon him after 
the completion of one of his great books. But 
more even than this does one note his doubt of 
whether it was after all worth while. "It will 
all be over soon enough/' we can hear him 
say, "Why then all the toil and strife?" This 
spirit breathes in much of his work, more par- 
[244] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

ticularly in The Roundabout Papers, some of 
which were penned immediately after the last 
proofs of one of his great books were sent to 
the printer. In the little essay entitled De 
Finibus we get much of Thackeray's phi- 
losophy of life. There is a sadness in it which 
one feels can have come only from a sense of 
his own inadequacy — from which his humility 
sprang — and from a sort of despair as to the 
outcome which sometimes overwhelmed him. 
But it can not be said of many men, as it can 
be said of him, that there is strength to be de- 
rived from this very humility. In one of the 
papers just mentioned he says : "Industry and 
humility will help and comfort us." There is 
a text which will bear a good deal of expound- 
ing. Industry, of course, we have thought of 
as a stay and comfort, but we have hardly 
thought so of humility. Possibly the two things 
are more nearly identical than we sometimes 
suppose them to be. Did any one ever know an 
honest and true worker, especially if he be- 
longed to the guild of "them that handle the 
pen," who did not have something of this hu- 
mility in him? The great engineers and in- 
ventors and scientists have almost invariably 
[ 245 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

been modest men. They are much given to un- 
derestimating their achievements, and with en- 
tire sincerity. 

It is even truer of the great writers, with 
those who really treat their vocation as a seri- 
ous thing, as one that imposes heavy responsi- 
bilities on them. They doubt the popular judg- 
ment, doubt when it is favorable even more 
than when it is unfavorable. For their stand- 
ard is invariably higher than the standard of 
the public, and they know how easily the pub- 
lic is deceived. And they dread being a party 
to such deception. There is always, too, the 
question of how much of their own lives they 
shall reveal, when to reveal any portion of 
them seems to them a vulgar thing — and the 
more sensitive and the more fit for their task 
they are, the more vulgar does it seem. The 
writer is all the while consulting with himself, 
as it were, all the while asking himself whether 
he has any right to share with the great world 
even the confidences that he has with himself. 
And as he goes on the very characters that he 
creates become so intensely real to him that 
they almost seem to be members of his family. 
How can he, such a man must ask himself, hon- 

[246] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

orably betray their secrets? His raw material 
is the human soul and that must always be 
treated with respect and reverence. Facing the 
great problems with which he must of neces- 
sity deal, the novelist must, if he be worthy of 
his high vocation, be at times oppressed with 
a sense of his own insignificance. He can not 
get away from this feeling of humility, that is, 
if he be really a great man and one who real- 
izes the duty which he owes to one of the most 
exacting of the professions. The very idea of 
asking the busy world to stop long enough to 
read one of his stories seems to him to be on 
the whole a piece of impertinence. The writer's 
craft, if it be honorably followed, is no light 
and easy calling. Of course the pretenders and 
shams are left out of the account. 

Thus industry and humility do seem to go 
together, and thus to be properly coupled in 
Thackeray's phrase. But how can it be said 
that they will "help and comfort us" ? This is 
a question that it is not easy to answer, and 
possibly the appeal is to each man's experience 
— if he does not feel that the thing is true in 
his case, the only thing to be said is that for 
him it is not true. But is not Thackeray right ? 
[247] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

That industry has this effect will hardly be de- 
nied, and we have seen that humility is close 
of kin to it. But how does this latter trait 
operate to "help and comfort us"? Well, it 
may be that, though it does not lighten the 
man's work, ease his responsibility, or cause 
him to be hopeful of reaching the highest level 
of achievement, it does nevertheless make it 
possible for him to plead his own felt weak- 
ness in mitigation of his failure, and to smile 
at the presumption that led him to undertake 
a task which he knew was beyond his power. 
Granted the honest and manly effort, the high 
purpose, the hard work, and the brave desire 
to measure fully up to his own aspirations, 
may not the worker rightly take comfort in the 
thought that his only sin was in expecting too 
much of himself — in the high endeavor, and 
not altogether in the failure, which may be no 
failure at all in the eyes of the world, or in- 
deed in any eyes but his own ? The man may, 
as Thackeray did, get even a sly satisfaction 
out of this line of reasoning, and jest with him- 
self over the high opinion in which he is held 
by the poor, ignorant world that really does 
not know what a humbug he is! "Succeed!" 

[248] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

many a man must have asked himself; "of 
course not, but what right had any one ever to 
think that I could succeed?" The only pro- 
viso is that the humility must be genuine, as it 
was in the case of Thackeray. If it is assumed, 
it is not humility, but hypocrisy. There can be 
no doubt that the great writers would all agree 
with Thackeray that "industry and humility 
will comfort us." 

But the principle has directly to do with life, 
for the life of the writer is affected in itself, 
as well as in its direct relation to his work. 
All Saints' Day, one of the loveliest feasts in 
the whole round of the church year, naturally 
invites to the study of perfection, perfection of 
character. And this can not be considered apart 
from the exalted standard to which men are 
expected to conform — to which, in our best 
moments, we all desire to conform. Who, then, 
are the blessed, except those described in the 
Sermon on the Mount, part of which is ap- 
pointed for the gospel for the day — the poor 
in spirit, the meek, the sorrowing, and the mer- 
ciful ? This idea runs through the whole Chris- 
tian revelation. There is no need to cite texts 
in proof of so self-evident a proposition. It is 
[ 249 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

enough to say that the teaching is that the road 
to the only true triumph lies through self- 
abasement. Contemplating the divine perfec- 
tion, which is the standard, no man can help 
having a deep feeling of humility. He is a 
worker at life, precisely as the writer is a 
worker at his books. And though he, as the 
writer, may realize his own failure, he can get 
the same comfort out of that true humility 
which makes him realize that after all the task 
set for his weak soul was beyond his powers. 
Though we may feel that we are all "knit to- 
gether in one communion and fellowship," we 
still know that we need the divine grace if we 
are to follow God's "blessed saints in all vir- 
tue and godliness of living." The great exam- 
ples of those who have preceded us are both a 
stimulus and a source of humility. And so the 
frame of mind of the man who strives to live 
greatly is precisely the same as that of the man 
who strives to write greatly. And there can be 
no great living or great writing apart from it. 
So humility naturally grows out of both situa- 
tions. 

But there is an element in the religious life 
that works toward the same end which is not 
[250] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

present, or not necessarily present, in the life 
of the writer. And that is the sense of depend- 
ence on God. This makes a man strong, but it 
ought also to make him humble and conscious 
of his own weakness in and of himself. We 
realize, sometimes almost painfully, that "we 
have no power of ourselves to help ourselves/' 
and so we reach out, it may be through the 
darkness, to the divine helper. But though hu- 
mility is the natural portion of the man trying 
to live a noble life, it is still necessary to ask, 
as in the former case, how it can become a 
source of "comfort." Here the answer is less 
difficult. For the deeper the humility that we 
feel the more complete will be our reliance on 
God, and on the eternal law of righteousness, 
and so our strength for the daily battle of life 
will be all the greater. Strength thus flows 
naturally out of Christian humility — strength 
and confidence and hope. It is the old Chris- 
tian law of life from death, strength from 
weakness, righteousness from a dying to sin 
and triumph through humility. All this is fre- 
quently taken in a metaphorical sense, and yet 
nothing could be more real. We have seen that 
humility is the source of strength — that 

[251] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

strength grows directly out of it, for it throws 
us back on God, who is the greatest ally a man 
can have. And all this surely is a "comfort." 

But many people think of humility as some- 
thing weak and even despicable, and altogether 
fail to understand what a great part it plays in 
the conduct of life. It is, however, directly re- 
lated to holiness. We read of "holy and hum- 
ble men of heart," and we know that the saints 
of God havq been humble men. Nor is this 
quality inconsistent with a true and proper 
pride. There was sometimes a mock humility 
and a wicked pride among the Puritans, but 
Macaulay was right when he said of the true 
Puritan that he was a man who would humble 
himself to the dust in the presence of his 
Maker, and yet set his foot on the neck of his 
king. It is so with all men of the right spirit 
in their struggle against wrong. They are 
strong — but they realize that their strength is 
not their own. So they are both humble and 
confident. These two qualities have been finely 
illustrated in the lives of the true saints. They 
were both the servants of God and the masters 
of themselves, with all their powers well- 
[ 252 ] 



INDUSTRY AND HUMILITY 

knit And this is the true Christian type. So 
again it seems that Thackeray is right, and also 
that the principle which he laid down has a 
broader application than it might at first blush 
be thought to have. Men in these days are not 
much given to thinking of humility as a strong 
and masterful quality — but such it seems to be. 
Nor do many realize that humility "will help 
and comfort us," and yet it appears that it 
may help and comfort those who work at any 
task as well as those who write books. To 
realize that you may not, because of your 
weakness, be able to do all that is expected of 
you, and yet to have the courage to make the 
effort — surely this is the right attitude for one 
to maintain toward life and its problems. One 
may, on the proper ground, excuse oneself for 
failure, but never for failure to make the at- 
tempt. If it were not so, the men with the 
highest aspirations would be the most wretched 
of creatures, for the higher the aspirations the 
wider is the interval between them and the 
man's performance. But the aspirations them- 
selves ought to count for much, provided there 
is an honest effort to live up to them. Truly 
[253] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

"industry and humility will help and comfort 
us," as they have comforted all who have 
fought the good fight, even though they may 
not seem to have enjoyed the triumph. 



[254] 



VIOLENCE OF SPEECH 

THERE are few things that have a worse 
effect on character than violence of speech 
— on the character both of those who indulge 
in it and those who hear or read it. It be- 
clouds our reason, disturbs our judgment, and 
betrays us into many and serious mistakes. 
Many men exposed to this contagion identify 
strength and power with violence, and so when 
a man states his case moderately and calmly, 
or meets an attack with good temper and cour- 
tesy, the statement and reply are almost certain 
to be characterized as "weak" by those who 
have fallen into the vice of violence or who 
have learned to admire it as a virtue. And so 
we come to rely, not on the truth itself, but on 
the outrageous way in which it is put before 
us, and to assume that those who do not use 
the same vehicle of expression are not telling 
the truth. There could hardly be a more ab- 
horrent confusion of ideas. For the result is, 
not simply the mistaking of violence for 

[255] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

strength, but the mistaking of weakness for 
strength, inasmuch as violence is the weapon 
of intellectual or moral weakness. 

The case is one of the misuse of powers, of 
the confounding of such things as light and 
darkness, for instance, to such an extent as 
to make the very light itself bring darkness to 
us. This is also the thought of Isaiah, who 
pronounced woe upon those "that call evil good, 
and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and 
light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, 
and sweet for bitter." The first duty of man 
as a thinking animal is to differentiate and dis- 
criminate, especially between virtue and vice, 
and this he can not do if he yields to savage 
fits of temper. Not only can he not discrimi- 
nate, but he actually comes in time to put evil 
in the place of good. 

The matter may be considered in two ways 
— first as related to life, and second as related 
to literature. The conclusion is the same in 
both cases, and naturally, inasmuch as litera- 
ture is the product, the analysis, the criticism, 
and the picture of life. The two can not be 
separated, for when they are really vital they 
run into each other. However, we may dis- 

[256] 



VIOLENCE OF SPEECH 

tinguish them for the purpose of discussion. 
First then, as to life. The strong characters 
have, as a rule, been the ones in which reserve 
and restraint were among the most conspicu- 
ous traits. Somehow they manage to create the 
impression that they have more strength than 
they use — that there are stores on which they 
could draw, but on which they never seem to 
need to draw. The man who, apparently, does 
his work by using only half his powers seems 
greater than his task, great enough, indeed, for 
any task that might be imposed on him. This 
business of living requires, if it is to be prop- 
erly managed, not only an exertion, but an 
economy of power. But there can be no such 
economy unless there is a surplus or reserve 
that is not ordinarily drawn on, though it does 
reinforce the power that is actually used. The 
man who uses all that he has in every action 
that he performs is a weak man precisely be- 
cause he is without any such surplus, because 
he is forced to use all his power in everything 
that he does. There is no margin — nothing 
left with which to meet and master real emer- 
gencies. The men who are most nearly the mas- 
ters of life — and of course no one is that — are 
[257] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

those to whom it somehow seems to come nat- 
urally, those whose powers it does not seem to 
tax. We get an impression of "strength not 
half put forth." 

The art of living has always been best ex- 
emplified by men of this type. Those Chris- 
tians who have come closest to the Christ idea 
have shown calmness, moderation and gentle- 
ness — been free from fret, fever and anxiety. 
The same thing is true of the great Stoics. To 
them life was not a "fitful fever," but some- 
thing to be lived quietly, bravely and nobly — 
something to be mastered. If it involved suf- 
fering, failure or defeat, that was not to be 
complained of, but to be borne as a part of life. 
There always is in such men both a dependence 
on God and a dependence on self. Looking up 
at the stars one night Arnold imagined that 
"from the intense, clear, star-sown vault of 
heaven" he heard a voice saying: "Wouldst 
thou be as these are? Live as they." And how 
do they live ? After this manner : 

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things without them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 

[258] 



VIOLENCE OF SPEECH 

"And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
And the sea its long moon-silvered roll ; 
For self -poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the suffering of some differing soul." 

If man at his best is a sort of cosmic force, 
he ought tO' work somewhat as other cosmic 
forces do — not, as the poet intimates, without 
sympathy or care for others, but still with easy 
power and freedom. Whitman had the same 
idea when he prayed "to be self-balanced for 
contingencies," and that he might "confront 
night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, re- 
buffs, as the trees and animals do." That is the 
life of the strong man, of the great man. He 
strives to become a storehouse of forces which 
shall be equal and more than equal to any draft 
that may be made on them. Fitting in with all 
this we have the great advice of Marcus Au- 
relius : "Be not wordy nor a busybody." Self- 
restraint is as necessary as self-criticism, and 
nothing can be more necessary than that. 

As has been intimated, precisely the same 
law holds in literature. The point could hardly 
be made better than by Amiel in his criticism of 
Victor Hugo, probably the greatest offender 
against the principle under discussion that ever 
[259 3 



DAY UNTO DAY 

lived. Amiel says: "Event after event has 
given the lie to the prophet, but the confidence 
of the prophet in his own imaginings is not, 
therefore, a whit diminished. Humility and 
common sense are only fit for Lilliputians. 
Victor Hugo superbly ignores everything which 
he has not foreseen. He does not know that 
pride limits the mind, and that a limitless pride 
is a littleness of soul. If he could but learn to 
rank himself with other men and France with 
other nations he would see things more truly, 
and would not fall into his insane exaggera- 
tions, his extravagant oracles. But proportion 
and justness his chords will never know. He is 
vowed to the Titanic ; his gold is always mixed 
with lead, his insight with childishness, his rea- 
son with madness. He can not be simple," and 
much more to the same purpose. And the criti- 
cism is true. Milton expresses the same 
thought as that given to us by the French critic 
when he speaks of work that "grows luxurious 
by restraint.'' And he emphasized and illus- 
trated the principle in every great piece of work 
that he did. One never feels that Milton is 
working at the top of his bent — there is always 
the sense of power not fully employed, power 
[260] 



VIOLENCE OF SPEECH 

which is nevertheless vast. Exaggerations and 
violences are the most serious blemishes that 
literature can have, for they indicate weakness 
and bad temper — or bad taste, which is in liter- 
ature quite as evil a thing. 

There are two powers in literature which in 
these days of extreme utterance and shocking 
confidences we make too little of. The first — 
and it is a great one — is the power of under- 
statement. The man who uses all the adjectives 
in the language to express his thought inevi- 
tably weakens his thought, and raises in the 
mind of the reader the suspicion that he is sure 
neither of himself nor his case. On the other 
hand, the man who understates, who is sparing 
in his use of epithets, makes us feel that he is 
one who weighs his words with care, and we 
infer from the fact that he does not say any 
more than he means — possibly not so much — 
that he does mean all that he says. But this 
understatement is more than this, for it is a 
positive beauty in literature, at least in the eyes 
of those best qualified to judge. This was 
Hamlet's idea when he said to the actors : 

"In the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may 
say) the whirlwind of passion, you must ac- 

[261] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

quire and beget a temperance, that may give 
it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, 
to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear 
a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the 
ears of the groundlings/' 

The greater the force, in other words, the 
greater will be the moderation, reserve and re- 
straint, for these qualities are the proof of 
power. All great literature testifies to the truth 
of this principle — the Bible, for instance. For 
literature is an art, as life is an art. It is, it is 
true, the product of the imagination, but of a 
chastened imagination, an imagination working 
under the control of the reason. And the mas- 
ters of it have always known that there is a 
virtue, and the greatest, in this power of un- 
derstatement. It both indicates and begets a 
calmness, a serenity and a sureness of aim and 
purpose, without which there can be no great 
literature. Even the most fanciful and fan- 
tastic poetry must be real, and this it can not 
be unless it is marked by the qualities spoken 
of as inseparable from the literary art at its 
highest estate. So we see that the same rule ap- 
plies to literature as to life, that in this particu- 
[ 262 ] 



VIOLENCE OF SPEECH 

lar, as in so many other particulars, literature 
and life are one. 

The other great power spoken of is reticence. 
Literature is valuable both for what it tells us 
and what it suggests to us. And the suggestions 
mostly come from the great reticences. And 
how full the masters are of them! The man 
with a well-stored mind can never tell you all 
he knows — indeed he does not try to do so. 
Here, as in life, we like to realize the existence 
of a power not fully used, of a knowledge not 
wholly revealed. The loquacious and verbose 
writers may please in their way, but they do not 
and can not make the highest appeal. In the 
great books you get in some mysterious way a 
sort of sense of silence even in the very utter- 
ance, and much more in the things that are not 
said but that you feel might have been said. 
Close of kin to this reticence is the other fine 
quality of allusiveness than which nothing — 
unless it be the reticence itself — is more stimu- 
lating and suggestive. Fortunately all this 
makes for clearness, directness and simplicity, 
which are the very highest literary qualities, as- 
sociated as they are with that other indispens- 

[263] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

able quality of charm. So it is that the men 
who strain the language to the breaking point 
are as great offenders as the actors who "tear 
a passion to tatters." They are without lucid- 
ity, without charm, without persuasiveness, 
beauty or power. They use words, not to ex- 
press thought, not to clothe beauty, but to ease 
their own souls and to give vent to their own 
passions. And that is a most debasing use to 
make of them. There is, too, a childishness in 
it that is belittling and dwarfing. As has been 
said, the great masters of speech have always 
understood this, and so it is that their power 
persists through the ages. When one of them 
does occasionally sin against this law we in- 
stinctively feel that for the time he has ceased 
to be himself. Both in life and literature we 
need to learn from the masters, to emulate their 
reserve and restraint. So shall we have nobler, 
living and greater literature. 



[ 264 j 



MODERATION 

SOMETHING has been said of the power of 
restraint or reserve, especially in relation 
to literature and life. We have from St. Paul 
this admonition — "Let your moderation be 
known unto all men." The word "moderation," 
as here used, differs somewhat in meaning 
from the words which were discussed in the 
preceding essay. It signifies, to some extent, 
pliability, and a capacity for yielding. But 
what it is proposed to discuss is the application 
of restraint, reserve, moderation and even pli- 
ability to the religious life. For a long time 
now the people of this country have been listen- 
ing to extravagant praise of the fighting spirit, 
and it is, perhaps, not surprising that they 
should have forgotten that this is not the spirit 
of the religion they profess. But first of re- 
straint and moderation. Men dealing with vast 
themes, such as religion, are all the while in 
danger of running to extremes. All about us 

c 265 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

are sects based on some narrow interpretation 
— usually a misinterpretation — of a text of 
Scripture, the chief quality of which is vio- 
lence. With them religion is a sort of madness 
or frenzy. They never approach it, never think 
about it, except in a spirit of hysteria. The 
phenomenon is, of course, not new, for such 
sects have existed in all ages. Many of the 
saints starved themselves into a state of mind 
that was extreme and unnatural. And to-day 
many ignorant men and women sincerely be- 
lieve that they see visions and hear voices, and 
are sometimes led, as they suppose, by God into 
the perpetration of crime, even of murder. The 
first point to be made is that all this is utterly 
unchristian. For Christianity is like that wis- 
dom which is described thus by St. James : 

'The wisdom that is from above is first pure, 
then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, 
full of mercy and good fruits, without partial- 
ity, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of 
righteousness is sown in peace of them that 
make peace." 

The faith which Christians profess is a rea- 
sonable and sober faith, the prime fruit of 
which is conduct. 

[266] 



MODERATION 

Religion, it is true, does make its appeal to 
the emotions, but its purpose is not to inflame 
them, but to stir them to the expression of 
themselves in action or conduct. They are not 
to be indulged for their own sake, as is the 
case with those who think they are "saved" 
when they "feel" that they are saved, and this 
without much reference to the character of 
their lives. It is to be borne in mind that re- 
ligion is something for rational beings, and 
that therefore the mind must have a large part 
in it. Creatures without minds can know noth- 
ing of it. And those who dethrone their minds 
can know little more of it. Men dealing with 
the great truths of religion are bound to use all 
the powers they have to the best of their ability, 
and are bound, too, to be humble and quiet in 
the presence of the divine mysteries. This has 
been the attitude of all men — Moses and St. 
John, for instance — who have had any true 
vision of God. The very consciousness of the 
nearness of that presence ought to restrain and 
sober men. We can learn something from the 
attitude of the scholar or investigator when he 
finds himself all at once face to face with a 
new truth. His joy and sense of triumph are 

[267] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

chastened by the realization of his own insig- 
nificance — he feels indeed as though he were 
on holy ground. The possession of the truth, 
and the consciousness of possessing it, impose 
heavy responsibilities. For it is to be rightly and 
nobly dealt with, and to be used for the benefit 
of others. The first thought then ought to be 
how we can make it fruitful in our own lives, 
how we can impart it to others less fortunate 
than we are. There was no wild rejoicing on 
the part of St. Paul when he was converted. 
On the contrary, his first question, when he 
realized that he had been called of God, was, 
"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Very 
humble and quiet he was. Any man in his right 
mind would, in the midst of the very joy of 
conversion, have one sobering thought — 
namely, that he was pledged to a change in the 
whole course of his life; that he had entered 
on a lifelong business. 

And that would bring with it a feeling of 
self-distrust, distrust of one's ability to meas- 
ure up to the new responsibilities. Everything 
therefore seems to indicate that reserve and 
quiet are not only most becoming, but that they 
are the necessary and natural consequences of a 
[268] 



MODERATION 

true faith. But there is another element in the 
problem, and that is the one of character-mak- 
ing. This is what religion is mostly for. Now 
character does not result from conversion, but 
from a faithful following of that light which 
one may suppose that one has received at that 
time. The process is long and arduous. Char- 
acter is not a suddenly manufactured thing. 
On the contrary, it is a growth, the product of 
a careful culture. In other words, it is to work 
that men are called, to a strife for perfection. 
And a part of that perfection is that very qual- 
ity of restraint or reserve or quietness, which 
has been so marked a trait of the really great 
heroes of the Christian faith. "Study to be 
quiet," writes St. Paul, "and to do your own 
business, and to work with your own hands, as 
we commanded you." So the same rule applies 
to religion as to life, which is in no way sur- 
prising, as religion is itself a life — designed to 
be the true and only life. Studying the life of 
the Founder of Christianity we can not think 
of noise or violence or brawling as having any 
part in the divine life which He brought to the 
world and would impart to men. He quotes 
Isaiah as saying of God's servant: "He shall 
[269] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man hear 
his voice in the streets." There was in it all 
a dignity of submissiveness which Christian 
people would do well to cultivate. There is a 
warfare, but it is one that is waged against 
self. Christ was wiser than St. Paul in that He 
did not "appeal unto Caesar," did not appeal to 
any one save the Almighty Father. It was He 
"who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; 
when He suffered, He threatened not." 

But there is something more than this in the 
Christian idea, for the reserve and restraint are 
less negative qualities than they are in the or- 
dinary life or in literature. The restraint must 
operate as a positive force- — must restrain 
from something. And that something is not 
simply external evil, not the ordinary passion 
of men. The Christian must have this power 
to yield even when he knows that he is right, 
the power to refuse to answer back, to refuse 
to avenge himself. A good deal of folly has 
been written by the champions of absolutism 
about the duty of passive obedience in politics. 
But this does not enter into the present discus- 
sion. We may few of us be able to live up to 
the Christian ideal, but the ideal is nevertheless 
[270] 



MODERATION 

clear and plain. It may be summed up in the 
love of one's enemies. To refuse to punish your 
enemy on the theory of leaving him to a God, 
who, you feel, will punish much more dread- 
fully than you could — this is not Christianity 
at all. The refusal to seek or to desire revenge 
must grow out of that other Christian idea — 
namely, that all men are our brothers, and that 
as such we are bound to love them. "If ye love 
them which love you," said Christ, "what re- 
ward have ye? do not even the publicans the 
same?" The teaching is unmistakable, and it 
can not be refined or interpreted away. Chris- 
tians were meant to have this quality of moder- 
ation in the sense of yieldingness. The whole 
of Scripture testifies to that fact. Men talk of 
miracles as being hard to accept. They are not 
one-half so hard as this doctrine concerning 
the conduct of life. And after twenty centuries 
Christians have not accepted it nor lived by it. 
Indeed, many of them go so far as to say that 
the ideal is impracticable and unrealizable. But 
nevertheless it is the ideal. And we may be- 
lieve that men are closer to it to-day than ever 
before. 

How practicable it is may be proved by a 
[271 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

consideration of the effect of its application to 
the life of the world. Suppose people were to 
give over the business of fighting with one an- 
other, not in actual war, for that is the least 
deadly form of strife, but in social, political 
and business rivalries — what a blessed peace 
would descend on the hearts of weary and 
vexed men! Most of our annoyances come 
from the constant effort to assert what we 
think are our own rights, and from the intense 
jealousy we show lest others should get more 
than we deem their due. Even now the great 
and really successful and happy men are those 
who never fight back, who are careless of their 
own rights and privileges, and whose great am- 
bition is not to compete with, but to help 
others. The servants of the race have almost 
invariably been men of this type. And they are 
the only men who have known that peace and 
joy — even amid great sorrow and pain it may 
be — which we all covet. So it is that the apostle 
tells us to let our "moderation,'' or yielding- 
ness, "be known to all men." If we could but 
rise to this height of spiritual excellence we 
should see an end of all those cares and annoy- 
ances and distractions by which we are now 
[272] 



MODERATION 

"sore let and hindered in running the race that 
is set before us." Of a truth all our obstacles 
are within. It is the old worldly temper which 
we have to combat and to conquer. We are far 
enough from the victory, as is proved by the 
applause which we bestow on those of violent 
speech and action, on those who, as we say, 
"stand up for their rights" — though they may 
be careless enough of the rights of others! 

Really the world is to be saved, and human- 
ity redeemed and glorified, not by the fighting 
spirit, but by the yielding spirit, the spirit 
which the apostle commends to us. We must 
believe this if we believe at all in Christianity. 
Men are saying — and we hear them every day 
— that Christianity has failed, when as a mat- 
ter of fact it has never had a fair trial in its 
purity. People are running after new religions 
or new modifications and adaptations of the 
old one, their chief aim apparently being to 
"get something" for themselves. Yet all the 
while we hear the old call to service and self- 
denial, the old call to forgive and to love rather 
than to fight and to crush our enemy. The 
question is simply one of heeding and obeying 
it. We need no new revelation, no new religion. 
[ ^73 T 



DAY UNTO DAY 

What we need is the new heart, so often spoken 
of in the Bible. To work for others, to serve 
them, to be willing to suffer in a noble cause, 
to refuse to add to the awful discord which 
now mars the life of the world — this is Chris- 
tianity. It is once more a question of noble 
and true living — as we saw it was in literature 
and life. The whole Christian revelation is 
saturated with these ideas. If they are true, 
how foolish are those who think it brave and 
manly to be quarreling and fighting all the 
while, how insane those who see in every man 
an enemy rather than a brother! The world 
can never make any progress along this line. 
It can only revert to barbarism, to the days 
when every man was a soldier, and when pri- 
vate vengeance was the law of life. So Chris- 
tianity and civilization are one, and civiliza- 
tion can be saved from marching to ruin by the 
old and well-worn path which has so often 
been trod, only by the application of the Chris- 
tian morality to it. And it can only be so ap- 
plied by men who are at least trying to rule 
their lives by the Christian spirit. What tired 
and tempted lives need is not the fighting spirit, 
but the peace which is promised in the gospel. 
[274] 



MODERATION 

That is a peace that will keep a man serene and 
self-poised in the midst of alarms, that will 
make him master of himself and his own base 
and fierce passions. It can come only from a 
realization of the Christian ideal. 



[275] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

IT is often the case that scientific men fail to 
meet fully their responsibilities to the peo- 
ple, fail indeed to realize how serious those re- 
sponsibilities are, and this is never truer than 
when they try to deal with revelation, and to 
carry forward science into a domain in which 
it has no proper place. Almost invariably in 
such cases they seem to be making concessions 
which they themselves in their hearts feel are 
not legitimate. Such men forget that the un- 
informed and the ill-informed will take their 
words for vastly more than they are worth, 
simply because they are the words of a scien- 
tist. People do not stop to think whether the 
subject is one in which the man is an author- 
ity, whether, indeed, that subject has any rela- 
tion of any kind to physical science. They are 
quick to assume that the voice which speaks is, 
not simply that of the scientist, but that of 
science itself. Many undoubtedly will have this 

[276] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

feeling in regard to Sir Oliver Lodge's amaz- 
ing statement concerning his "communications" 
with three of his dead friends through two 
very remarkable mediums. It will not occur to 
them to ask what Sir Oliver can know about 
this subject more than other people know, or 
to inquire as to the possibility of any one hav- 
ing any knowledge on the subject. They will 
not stop to ask even whether he carried his 
scientific temper into the inquiry, whether his 
usual scientific doubt accompanied him on his 
excursion into the unknown world. They will 
be content to learn that a distinguished scien- 
tist has been converted to what is at best only 
a respectable form of spiritism. The New 
York Times puts the case so clearly — and on 
such a subject as this it is important that the 
people be not deceived — that a quotation may 
be pardoned: 

" 'Mediums' of high and low degree, and all 
the shady, shabby troop of traffickers in mys- 
ticism and superstition, will hail the news as 
the corroboration of their claims by a real 
scientist, and they will eagerly await the in- 
evitable increase in the number of their dupes 
— and of admission fees to their seances. Well, 
[277] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

they have the corroboration, for Sir Oliver is 
a real scientist, but the assumption that, be- 
cause he speaks with authority on electricity, 
for instance, he should be heard with the same 
respect when the subject is mediumship, so- 
called, can be made only by those who think 
that a scientist knows all science. As a matter 
of fact, though Sir Oliver Lodge has long been 
prominent among the psychical researchers, 
and has given much of eager attention to oc- 
cultism, he has never shown the slightest in- 
clination to use his scientific training in that 
field of his activity. On the contrary, he has 
there always illustrated precisely the character- 
istics of the ordinary haunters of the dimly- 
lighted back parlors where elementary tricks 
of legerdemain are received with gasps of 
reverent astonishment. * * * The truth 
is that no medium ever yet came successfully 
through a scientific test conducted by experts 
trained to precision in that particular field of 
inquiry, and, as for automatic writing and 
speaking, which Sir Oliver calls 'the most im- 
portant set of phenomena/ their importance is 
wholly for the student of pathology, who, if 
he happens also to be a neurologist, treats them 

[278] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

for their nervous instability, and sometimes 
cures it. Never, in their company, does he hear 
the whisper of a spirit or the rustle of an an- 
gelic wing; instead he listens to the invariably 
childish chatter of the subconscious self, tem- 
porarily deprived of intelligent guidance and 
control." 

There is, as the Times says, no mystery ex- 
cept to those who reject the distinction be- 
tween the conscious and the subconscious, and 
who suppose that "because Lodge and Crookes 
are on their side the world of science is with 
them." In short, a great deal is made of the 
support of a scientist who has for the time 
ceased to be a scientist. Nor should it be for- 
gotten that it is almost invariably the strange 
fate of those who go into these investigations 
to acquire, sooner or later, not a mere willing- 
ness to believe and to be convinced, but a strong 
determination and a most earnest desire and 
longing to believe. There is something in the 
subject that takes the mind captive, that over- 
whelms the imagination, and that sweeps the 
investigator to conviction before he realizes 
that he is no longer an inquirer, but a devotee. 
Doubtless it is so with Sir Oliver Lodge. He 
[ 279 ] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

has been working for a good while with the 
psychical researchers, and been very greatly in- 
terested in occultism. And now at last he thinks 
that he has scientifically proved his proposi- 
tion, which is really only what he himself is 
eager to believe. There is nothing scientific in 
his attitude, though, of course, he thinks there 
is, and though he uses language that is to a 
certain extent scientific. But when he says that 
the boundary between the two worlds is "wear- 
ing thin in places," and expresses the belief 
that it will soon be broken down, he is talking 
of something of which not even a scientist can 
know anything. 

All that has happened to him is the recep- 
tion of certain so-called "messages" from three 
dead friends, an experience which millions on 
millions of people have had. Of course, it is 
perfectly conceivable from a religious point of 
view that there might be such communications. 
But it is not scientifically conceivable, nor is it 
conceivable either that science should ever 
prove the existence of life beyond the grave. 
The existence of such a life can not be 
"proved" even with the help of revelation. The 
only point it is desired to make here is that 
[280] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

Sir Oliver Lodge can know no more about this 
matter than is known by the most ignorant and 
superstitious haunter of the "back parlors.'' 
There is a field for investigation in which much 
is certain to be discovered, and that is the re- 
lation of the conscious to the subconscious self, 
and of the operations of the mind of man. 
Man himself in the deeper recesses of his na- 
ture is a proper subject for study. But science 
can have nothing to do with a spirit world, for 
there is no point at which the two meet. 

It has been said that Sir Oliver Lodge makes 
use, to a certain extent, of scientific language. 
Yet one can not tell what he means when he 
says that "on the question of the life hereafter 
the excavators are engaged in boring a tunnel 
from the opposite end," and that "amid the roar 
of the water and the other noises we are begin- 
ning to hear the strokes of the pickaxes of our 
comrades on the other side." Does Sir Oliver 
himself know what he means? At best this is 
only a metaphor, and the true scientist is spar- 
ing in the use of metaphors. What this man's 
conception of the future life is it is impossible 
to judge from his extraordinary language. If 
the boundary, which he says is "wearing thin," 

[281] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

should be finally broken down, there would not 
be two lives — one on this side and one on the 
other side of the grave — but simply one life. 
We should, in a sense, all be dead, or else we 
should all be living a life very like that old life 
with which we are so familiar. Poor Macbeth, 
driven to insanity by the coinage of his dis- 
ordered brain, spoke the sane truth when he 
said: 

" — the times have been 
That, when the brains were out, the man would 
die." 

Death truly means, and necessarily involves, 
separation in time and space. When men are 
dead they are dead. As far as we can know, 
death ends all. The boundary between life and 
death, between this world and the next, is pre- 
cisely as "thin" as it ever was, and no thinner. 
The doctrine of immortality, which is so pre- 
cious to the race, and so necessary to man's 
moral well-being, can not be proved by any 
reasoning which confuses and confounds two 
lives which God Almighty has sundered. There 
is, therefore, no possibility of understanding 
what Sir Oliver means when he says that the 
[282] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

denizens of the two worlds are at work pene- 
trating the partition that now separates them. 
What would happen in such a case? How 
would the two species of beings meet and min- 
gle? What would be the nature of their rela- 
tionship? Try to put such thoughts as these 
into scientific language if you care to realize 
how tremendous — and how hopeless — is the 
problem. 

The whole subject belongs within the realm 
of faith, and there alone. It can not be dealt 
with except in terms of revelation or philos- 
ophy. We must to the end of time be content 
to believe "where we can not prove." To take 
any other view is to discredit both faith and 
reason. To desire to take any other view is to 
confess to a weak and helpless faith. Immor- 
tality, that great and divine thing, transcends 
reason, is above experience, and is beyond the 
utmost reach of science. Its very greatness and 
wonder take it out of all those categories under 
which w r e classify truth as we know it by rea- 
son. When, therefore, scientific men intrude 
here they dishonor their science, confound 
faith, and confuse and paralyze the spiritual 
nature of man. It sometimes seems that as 

[283] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

men become more rational they become at the 
same time more superstitious. Clamoring for 
proof of what can never be proved, and realiz- 
ing that the old truths are incapable of demon- 
stration by logical process, they throw them 
away. And then, having lost them, and desiring 
to recover them, they resort to the "soothsay- 
ers." So we need, not more science, but vastly 
more faith, and faith of an ordered and intelli- 
gent kind. And so in an old collect we pray : "O 
Lord, we beseech Thee to keep Thy church and 
household continually in Thy true religion; 
that they who do lean only upon the hope of 
Thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended 
by Thy mighty power." And again we are 
bidden to pray that we may die "in the confi- 
dence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a 
reasonable, religious and holy hope." Faith 
and hope — a faith and hope that flower in 
charity — these must be our dependence and 
stay. There is nothing else on which we can 
rely. 

And they are enough, for they are from God 
Himself. Could even knowledge help us here? 
Should we be any better men if we knew scien- 
tifically that we were to live beyond the grave ? 
[284] 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

Should we be persuaded "though one rose from 
the dead ?" This is doubtful. For the strength 
that we need for the struggle of life is that 
which is developed by the exercise of faith, 
and yet we "stumble at truth's very test." It 
has always been so with men. They lose their 
faith, and then cry aloud for knowledge to take 
its place. The result is that they get nothing. 
Bishop Blougram puts the case well : 

"How you'd exult if I could put you back 

Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony, 

Geology, ethnology, what not 

(Greek endings, each the little passing-bell 

That signifies some faith's about to die), 

And set you square with Genesis again, — 

When such a traveler told you his last news, 

He saw the ark atop of Ararat 

But did not climb there since 'twas getting dusk 

And robber bands infest the mountain's foot ! 

How should you feel, I ask, in such an age, 

How act ? As other people felt and did ; 

With soul more blank than this decanter's knob, 

Believe — and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate, 

Full in belief's face, like the beast you'd be!" 

If, as Christ said, it is not given to us to 
"know the times or the seasons," such for- 
bidden knowledge would not, we may be very 

[285] 



DAY UNTO DAY 

sure, help us to lead nobler and truer lives. The 
proof of immortality is wholly moral and re- 
ligious. The most that science can do, if it can 
do even thus much, is to suggest that the na- 
ture of man is such as to make it improbable 
that he is to perish everlastingly. It certainly 
can not bridge the gap between the living and 
those whom we call the dead. Faith can do 
this, and nothing else can. 



THE END 



AUG If 191! 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2005 

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